DOCSLIB.ORG

EDITORIAL a Matter of Quality of Life “Baloney!” the Word

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
EDITORIAL a Matter of Quality of Life “Baloney!” the Word Organizations, People and Strategies in Astronomy 2 (OPSA 2), 1-14 Ed. A. Heck, © 2013 Venngeist. EDITORIAL A Matter of Quality of Life “Baloney!” The word actually used was a ruder one. My neighbor had jumped on his feet, shouting at the orator. We were on the French Riviera attending, in one of the local top-class hotels, a seminar where I had been sent as a young executive of an international organization. The purpose was to initiate the attendees to the latest theories for the best management of human resources (MHR). My neighbor had shaken hands with me the day before: an American- educated executive of an oil company from the Persian Gulf, and privately an obviously brillant and urbane gentleman. Hence his violent reaction and his utterance were all the more unexpected. But I had been myself increasingly irritated by the speaker of that morning. That lecturer had been introduced to us as having an evening tantric orgasm every time he could claim his regular work and schedule had been optimized better than the day before, allowing him to achieve more than his colleagues. And, of course, the greenhorns we were in his views were supposed to get the same from ourselves and the people we were managing. You can easily imagine him, full of his own importance, arrogantly deliver- ing thousand and one tricks to save time. As if we had been waiting for his advice to be as efficient as possible in our own context ... “Baloney!”, repeated my neighbor, having successfully interrupted the flow of words from the speaker. “This is just non-sense. If you are still stick- ing to such primitive ideas about productivity and performance, your views on management are totally outdated.” He went on explaining that execu- tives, employees and workers alike had increasingly prioritized the quality of life, including at the working place. The days were not necessarily less active, but more oriented towards welfare and prosperity. Having relieved his heart, our oil man winked at us and disappeared for the day. 2 Faithful to his principles, the cantor of the saved split-seconds acted as if nothing had happened, hurried back to the overhead projector and went on with his lecture. But, for many among his audience that morning, the lesson was probably not the one he was looking for. This took place several decades ago. Since then, the trend in MHR has given ever more significance to the human substance within organizations. Where are we sitting within our scientific entities? As already mentioned in these editorials, we are short of achieving a perfect situation. Too often in the course of a long international career have I seen managers primarily interested in their own careers and ignoring the legitimate aspirations of the people placed under their responsibilities, when not clumpsily if not deliberately hurting them, sometimes to the point of demotivating them, getting them to leave or, when no other choice, to simply shut down and do the strict minimum of work required. In such cases, the real loser is of course the organization itself. This is most unfortunate for scientific institutions where creativity and initiative from scientists are of primary importance. Those qualities can only flourish and prosper in an adequately motivating context, first of all by receiving ad hoc respect and recognition. Virtually all managers of scientific institutions, definitely of the small- and medium-size ones, are themselves scientists, most of them lacking how- ever a decent training in handling human resources (HR). Such entities are also generally too poor to hire heads of personnel or HR officers. In large or- ganizations with multiple locations, personnel departments are sometimes too remote to handle local problems and/or are unaware of local cultures and histories. A Matter of DOBEs and MEEPs Misconceptions and inconsistencies also abound. Improving the quality of working conditions does not necessarily mean organizing get-together par- ties and festivities. If these can help making the institutional atmosphere more pleasant, they can only be secondary factors. Some managers have become real professionals in organizing celebrations of all kinds. And suc- cessful too, but in appearance only as a non-negligible number of attendees are lured in mainly by free booze and a break in daily activities. The money spent that way would certainly be better used by helping out scientists fi- nancing their trips and equipment out of their own pockets. I do know places where this happens. But I have seen also more perverse cases where wrong HR handling goes beyond simple blunder and lack of ad hoc training in HRM: cases where managers deliberately hurt people (sometimes simply because they do not © 2013 Venngeist. Editorial 3 Figure 1. “[...] the frontispiece of Jacob Bartsch’s Planisphaerium stellatum (1661) [...] depicts a group of men, among them D¨urer easily identifiable to the left. He is one of the great men of Nuremburg, which is also depicted in the background, [... who ...] seem to be involved in a conversation about objects and books placed on and below the table. That astronomical books could also be part of such a conversation is made believable from the open book next to the armillary sphere in the foreground left. The open page of the book shows diagrams reminiscent of a book on astronomy. The place where books on astronomy would be displayed, discussed and used was obviously not only the sumptuous library or Kunstkammer of princes, but also in more modest collections, observatories and private houses. There it could be appropriate to discuss astronomi- cal matters together with the other arts.” This commentary extracted from Elmqvist S¨oderlund’s (2010, p. 325) remarkable collection of frontispieces illustrates that the min- gling of scientists with artists was already a fact centuries ago. Jacob (or Jakob) Bartsch (1600-1633) studied and taught in Strasbourg, married Johannes Kepler’s daughter Su- sanna, and published numerous contributions to mathematics and astronomy. The book dated 1661 illustrated above is obviously a posthumous release printed in N¨urnberg with a frontispiece due to Mathias van Somer. The chair left vacant in Strasbourg by Bartsch’s death was filled in by the appointment of Julius Reichelt (1637-1717) who lobbied for establishing the first astronomical observing post in Strasbourg (cf. Heck 2012c). See also OPSA 1’s editorial (Heck 2012b, p. 3) for another excerpt from Elmqvist’s compendium. (Quotation courtesy I. Elmqvist S¨oderlund – Scan by A. Heck) © 2013 Venngeist. 4 serve their personal ambitions), then ostracize them, maliciously blame them for their subsequent distance, and use it as an excuse for blocking their career when not for ultimately getting rid of them. Such misbehaviors have to be talked about and not kept silenced as taboos. I have a dream. In this part of the world, it used to be a time when someone causing a car crash while being intoxicated with alcohol was granted this as an excuse: “You know, the poor guy has been celebrating this or that, or was coming back from a New Year party, and he could not master his vehicle”. And whether or not he had a driving licence was not a serious issue. Fortunately we came a long way from that. I dream of a time when lack of HRM training won’t be used anymore as an excuse for blunders and mistreatment. “You know, he was the only one who applied for that job of manager and, well, he is inexperienced in dealing with people.” No, managers are fully responsible for the positions they are accepting. I dream of a time when an appropriate education will be required from anyone put in charge of people, not through occasional seminars like the one mentioned in the opening anecdote, but through real teaching and super- vised practice. I dream of a time when any report or decision detrimental to a staff member won’t be made without hearing the person concerned by an independent body. I dream of a time when people mistreated or hurt by clumpsy managers, or worse by malevolent ones, will be able to hold these accountable. I dream of a time when bullying and suffering at work1 will be something of the past and we won’t meet anymore people, scientists or technical personnel (generally in a weaker position), telling their stories with tears in their eyes. I dream of a time when we won’t have anymore DOBE-type managers (Demotivating-Ostracizing-Blaming-Expelling ones) and only MEEP-type ones, i.e. those managers who Motivate, Entertain, Encourage and Promote their people. A Matter of Appropriate Recognition In scientific circles, ethics is too often restricted to matters dealing with experimental fraud, with hoaxes or with plagiarism in publications. In my view however, the above HR-related issues are fully part of professional ethics too. MEEP-type managers will have realized that getting the talents of their personnel flourishing and prospering, making full usage of their initiative and capabilities, will benefit their institution, enhancing its reputation and 1Such issues have already been discussed in OPSA 1’s editorial (Heck 2012b). © 2013 Venngeist. Editorial 5 Figure 2. Astronomers fluent in Spanish and interested in astronomy of the past century will certainly enjoy reading this novel by Elena Poniatowska (1932- ), recipient of the th IV Alfaguara Prize (2001). In La piel del cielo [The Skin of the Sky], the central charac- th ter looks into the possibilities of science for explaining world and life on a XX -century Mexican background. Poniatowska, the widow of Astronomer Guillermo Haro (1913-1988) who was in charge of Tonantzintla Institute of Astronomy and Observatory, was born in Paris to a Polish father and a Mexican mother.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Prehistory of Transit Searches Danielle BRIOT1 & Jean
    Prehistory of Transit Searches Danielle BRIOT1 & Jean SCHNEIDER2 1) GEPI, UMR 8111, Observatoire de Paris, 61 avenue de l’Observatoire, F- 75014, Paris, France [email protected] 2) LUTh, UMR 8102, Observatoire de Paris, 5 place Jules Janssen, F-92195 Meudon Cedex, France [email protected] Abstract Nowadays the more powerful method to detect extrasolar planets is the transit method, that is to say observations of the stellar luminosity regularly decreasing when the planet is transiting the star. We review the planet transits which were anticipated, searched, and the first ones which were observed all through history. Indeed transits of planets in front of their star were first investigated and studied in the solar system, concerning the star Sun. The first observations of sunspots were sometimes mistaken for transits of unknown planets. The first scientific observation and study of a transit in the solar system was the observation of Mercury transit by Pierre Gassendi in 1631. Because observations of Venus transits could give a way to determine the distance Sun-Earth, transits of Venus were overwhelmingly observed. Some objects which actually do not exist were searched by their hypothetical transits on the Sun, as some examples a Venus satellite and an infra-mercurial planet. We evoke the possibly first use of the hypothesis of an exoplanet transit to explain some periodic variations of the luminosity of a star, namely the star Algol, during the eighteen century. Then we review the predictions of detection of exoplanets by their transits, those predictions being sometimes ancient, and made by astronomers as well as popular science writers.
    [Show full text]
  • Apus Constellation Visible at Latitudes Between +5° and -90°
    Apus Constellation Visible at latitudes between +5° and -90°. Best visible at 21:00 (9 p.m.) during the month of July. Apus is a small constellation in the southern sky. It represents a bird-of-paradise, and its name means "without feet" in Greek because the bird-of-paradise was once wrongly believed to lack feet. First depicted on a celestial globe by Petrus Plancius in 1598, it was charted on a star atlas by Johann Bayer in his 1603 Uranometria. The French explorer and astronomer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille charted and gave the brighter stars their Bayer designations in 1756. The five brightest stars are all reddish in hue. Shading the others at apparent magnitude 3.8 is Alpha Apodis, an orange giant that has around 48 times the diameter and 928 times the luminosity of the Sun. Marginally fainter is Gamma Apodis, another ageing giant star. Delta Apodis is a double star, the two components of which are 103 arcseconds apart and visible with the naked eye. Two star systems have been found to have planets. Apus was one of twelve constellations published by Petrus Plancius from the observations of Pieter Dirkszoon Keyser and Frederick de Houtman who had sailed on the first Dutch trading expedition, known as the Eerste Schipvaart, to the East Indies. It first appeared on a 35-cm diameter celestial globe published in 1598 in Amsterdam by Plancius with Jodocus Hondius. De Houtman included it in his southern star catalogue in 1603 under the Dutch name De Paradijs Voghel, "The Bird of Paradise", and Plancius called the constellation Paradysvogel Apis Indica; the first word is Dutch for "bird of paradise".
    [Show full text]
  • VIRTUAL CONCEPT > REAL PROFIT
    B K C L OZE ULKA OE M > K , VIRTUAL CONCEPT REAL PROFIT S , [ed.] AWSKI with Digital Manufacturing and Simulation IR E , S , , , O VIRTUAL CONCEPT In our highly competitive industrialized world of lean production TT O and fast innovation, it comes as no surprise that customers demand CASA Yves Coze instantaneous delivery of individualized products at the best price- , , > performance ratio. For manufacturing companies, vast product REAL PROFIT ranges of high quality and complexity mean that flexible develop- with Digital Manufacturing and Simulation VIRTUAL CONCEPT ment and ramp-up across supply chain networks is crucial to survive with Digital Manufacturing and Simulation and thrive. Global competition, economic pressure, environmental and energy issues demand state-of-the-art capabilities and, above all, timely action. Such formidable challenges can only be met by Nicolas Kawski tightly interwoven lifecycle-oriented engineering and manufactur- ing technologies and processes. To date more than ever, the ongoing development and integration of digital manufacturing and simu- lation is critical to eliminate the waste of time and money in the physical world, and to ensure product success as much and as early as possible. Torsten Kulka Digital manufacturing and simulation clearly constitute contempo- rary extensions of the train of thought and practice that Frederick Winslow Taylor started a century ago. The evolution from “Taylor- > made” to “tailor-made” is in perfect concert with the ongoing REAL PROFIT customization that customers have learned not only to demand but to even co-create. Apart from lowering cost and improving time- to-market, digital manufacturing and simulation are targeted at Pascal Sire intensifying the intimacy, efficiency and effectiveness of co-creation feedback loops, fostering the collaboration of manufacturers, cus- tomer communities, independent R&D institutes and individuals.
    [Show full text]
  • JO HANNESKEPLER Johannes Kepler Wurde Am 27
    Natura scritta in lingua matematica Galilei. JOHANNES KEPLER Johannes Kepler wurde am 27. Dezember 1571 in der freien Reichsstadt Weil der Stadt (Bezirk Leonberg) in Württemberg geboren. Ein Ahne Keplers war 1433 von Kaiser Sigismund auf der Tiberbrücke in Rom zum Ritter geschlagen worden, so daß sich unser Johannes zu altem Adel rechnen durfte. Sein Großvater Sebald war Bürgermeister der Stadt gewesen. Aus dessen Ehe entstammten 12 Kinder, darunter der Vater Heinrich unseres Johannes. Heinrich Kepler heiratete am 15. Mai 1571 die Bürgermeisterstochter von Eltingen, Katharina Guldenmann und schon am 27. Dezember des gleichen Jahres erblickte ein schwaches Siebenmonatkind das Licht der Welt, deren Himmelsgesetze es später ergründen sollte. Eine sorg­ same Pflege in ruhiger Familie fand der junge Kepler freilich nicht. Im Vater Heinrich steckte die Abenteuerlust der Ahnen; so zog er immer wieder als Söldner des Herzogs Alba in die Ferne. Und die unbe­ herrschte Mutter verzichtete gerne auf den häuslichen Herd, folgte dem tatenfrohen Mann in den Krieg und überließ den Großeltern gerne den kleinen Johannes, der zu aller Schwächlichkeit noch eine schwere Pockenerkrankung durchmachen mußte. Reichtümer sammelten die Eltern in der Ferne nicht, ja sie verloren ihr ganzes Vermögen, das in einer gepachteten Wirtschaft nicht mehr zurückgewonnen werden konnte. Schließlich zog der Vater als spanischer Hauptmann in den Krieg gegen die Portugiesen und starb auf der Heimreise in der Nähe von Augsburg. Die Jugend Keplers war also alles andere als glücklich und sorgenfrei, zumal er auch während seines Schulbesuches im der Volksschule zu Weil und der Lateinschule von Leon­ berg zu allen möglichen Arbeiten in Haus und Feld herangezogen wurde.
    [Show full text]
  • Jan/12/2006 Star Maps and Constellations Page SC- 1 Practical
    Jan/12/2006 Star Maps and Constellations Page SC- 1 Practical Astronomy ©Jan2006, W. Pezzaglia Winter 2006 Jan/12/2006 Star Maps and Constellations Page SC- 2 Star Maps and Constellations Except for the last 400 years, all observations of the "universe" were done by naked eye. Surprisingly, there is a great deal that can be learned by simply "stargazing". In fact, until you've become visually familiar with the sky, a telescope will not be of much use, as you won't know where to point it. The first stage of any exploration is making a map. The science of mapping is called Cosmography, where the Greek root word cosmos refers to describing the order and harmony of the universe. The focus of this chapter is to learn about maps of the celestial sphere, how we identify and name stars (and how to find them in the sky). A. Asterism & Constellations On a dark clear night, the sky seems to be a random jumble of stars. One of the most basic human traits however, is to make order out of chaos. We look for patterns. The analytic will see symbolic or geometric grouping (e.g. looks like a "W" or a triangle), the poetic will see epic heroes. These "groupings" of stars are called asterisms. Many are "natural" as evidenced by divergent cultures having many of the same stars grouped together (in some cases, even with similar interpretations). 1. Ancient History: The first recorded names for asterisms come from the Babylonians about 3000 B.C. There were originally just four "signs", associated with the position of the sun for the four seasons: Taurus the Bull (spring), Leo the Lion (Summer), Scorpius the Scorpion (fall) and Aquarius the water bearer (winter).
    [Show full text]
  • UT114 Heavens Above Bklt.Qxp
    HEAVENS ABOVE : STARS , C ONSTELLATIONS , AND THE SKY COURSE GUIDE Professor James B. Kaler UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN Heavens Above: Stars, Constellations, and the Sky Professor James B. Kaler University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Recorded Books ™ is a trademark of Recorded Books, LLC. All rights reserved. Heavens Above: Stars, Constellations, and the Sky Professor James B. Kaler Executive Producer John J. Alexander Executive Editor Donna F. Carnahan RECORDING Producer - David Markowitz Director - Matthew Cavnar COURSE GUIDE Editor - James Gallagher Design - Edward White Lecture content ©2007 by James B. Kaler Course guide ©2007 by Recorded Books, LLC 72007 by Recorded Books, LLC Cover image: Medieval astronomical clock in Prague, Czech Republic © Fribus Ekaterina/shutterstock.com #UT114 ISBN: 978-1-4281-8572-2 All beliefs and opinions expressed in this audio/video program and accompanying course guide are those of the author and not of Recorded Books, LLC, or its employees. Course Syllabus Heavens Above: Stars, Constellations, and the Sky About Your Professor ................................................................................................... 4 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 5 Lecture 1 Sky and Stars ........................................................................................ 6 Lecture 2 Constellations ...................................................................................... 11
    [Show full text]
  • Renaissance Star Charts Anna Friedman Herlihy
    4 • Renaissance Star Charts Anna Friedman Herlihy Between the early fifteenth and the early seventeenth cen- of their predecessors for both technical data and artistic turies, star charts progressed from imprecise, often deco- style, with certain works reflecting moments of break- rative illustrations based on medieval manuscripts to through and the founding of new traditions. sophisticated map projections with systematized nomen- clature for the stars. The reimportation into Europe of Historiography technical classical texts such as Ptolemy’s Almagest, as well as Islamic works such as Abu¯ al-H. usayn Abd al- Despite the recent publication of a number of lavish illus- 3 Rah.ma¯n ibn Umar al-S.u¯fı¯’s constellation maps, appears trated books intended for a general public audience, the to have played a significant role in this transformation. By study of Renaissance star charts (and indeed star charts the early sixteenth century, with the publication of Al- in general) has been largely neglected by the scholarly brecht Dürer’s pair of maps in 1515, the most popular format for small celestial maps was definitively set: two hemispheres, north and south, on some sort of polar pro- jection. Around the turn of the seventeenth century, when Johannes Bayer published his 1603 Uranometria, the ba- I would like to thank Elly Dekker for her invaluable feedback and comments on the draft of this chapter, especially regarding the Hip- sic star atlas format was solidified, with one page for each parchus rule, and for several additional references of which I was un- constellation and perhaps a few hemispherical charts aware.
    [Show full text]
  • KGW CONTENTS Johannes Kepler, Gesammelte Werke, Munich
    KGW CONTENTS Johannes Kepler, Gesammelte Werke, Munich, 1937 – 2012. [Each volume contains a discussion following the text (Nachbericht) and detailed Notes (Anmerkungen) written by the named Editor. In the case of the major works the discussion is extended.] KGW I (1938) Ed. M. Caspar Mysterium cosmographicum (Tübingen, 1596) – pp.1-80 [Containing reprint of G. J. Rheticus, Narratio prima (second edition, 1596) – pp.81-131, and Appendix by Mästlin, De dimensionibus orbium … pp.132-145] De stella nova (published originally in four parts): De stella nova in pede Serpentarii (Prague, 1606) – pp.147-292; De stella Cygni (Prague, 1606) – pp.293-312; De stella nova in pede Serpentarii, pars altera (Frankfurt, 1606) – pp.313-356; De Jesu Christi vero anno natalitio (Frankfurt, 1606) – pp.357-390 Bericht vom neuen Stern (Prague, 1604) – pp.391-399. KGW II (1939) Ed. F. Hammer Ad Vitellionem paralipomena quibus astronomiae pars optica traditur (Frankfurt, 1604) – pp.5- 391. KGW III (1937) Ed. M. Caspar Astronomia nova (Heidelberg, 1609) – pp.5-424. KGW IV (1941) 'Short Works 1602 - 1611' ('Kleinere Schriften 1602 - 1611') Ed. M. Caspar, F. Hammer De fundamentis astrologiae certioribus (Prague, 1602) – pp.5-35 De solis deliquio epistola (Prague, 1605) – pp.37-53 Bericht vom Kometen (Halle, 1608) – pp.55-76 Phaenomenon singulare seu Mercurius in Sole (Leipzig, 1609) – pp.77-98 Antwort auf Roeslini Discurs (Prague, 1609) – pp.99-144 Tertius interveniens (Frankfurt, 1610) – pp.145-258 Strena seu de nive sexangula (Frankfurt, 1611) – pp.259-280 Dissertatio cum nuncio sidereo (Prague, 1610) – pp.281-311 Narratio de observatis a se quatuor Iovis satellitibus erronibus (Frankfurt, 1611) – pp.313-325 Dioptrice (Augsburg, 1611) – pp.327-414.
    [Show full text]
  • 3. Obloha a Súhvezdia
    Po západe Slnka – zoznámenie sa s nočnou oblohou Mgr. Patrik Čechvala [email protected] Univerzita tretieho veku, 10:00, 24.10.2019 Čo môžeme vidieť na oblohe? Zdroj: Stellarium Koľko hviezd je možné vidieť voľným okom? Tisíce, Státisíce, Milióny, Miliardy, Trilióny, Kvadrilióny, Nekonečno, ...? Zdroj: Wikipedia Ako sa zorientovať? - Svetové strany – juh, západ, východ, sever - Ako určiť svetové strany? Zdroj: Wikipedia http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2552530/The- mystery-North-Star-Astronomers-baffled-Polaris-getting- BRIGHTER.html Kde sa s uhlami stretávame? Prečo o tom hovoríme? Azimut - Obyčajne v astronómii je zvyk azimut A merať od juhu (geografického) smerom k západu - Od severu (0°) – východ (90°), juh (180°), západ (270°) - Od juhu (0°) – západ (90°), sever (180°), východ (270°) Kde sa s uhlami stretávame? Prečo o tom hovoríme? - Jednotlivé objekty, ktoré vidíme na oblohe sú v skutočnosti rôzne ďaleko - My na oblohe však tieto vzdialenosti priamo nevieme vnímať - Objekty sa nám zobrazujú na myslenú sféru - Pre túto sféru nemá zmysel merať vzdialenosti objektov na nej vo vzdialenostiach ale v uhloch – hovoríme o tzv. uhlových vzdialenostiach - Hovoriť takisto môžeme aj o rozmeroch jedného objektu tzv. uhlová veľkosť - V uhloch zadávame súradnice objektov na oblohe - Z dôsledných pozorovaní je možné určiť/vypočítať súradnice objektu dopredu (pre konkrétny čas) – takéto súradnice následne nazývame tzv. efemeridy - Podľa týchto súradníc následne vieme namieriť teleskop na oblohu tak, aby sme mali objekt v poli ďalekohľadu 21.6.2019 La Laguna, Tenerife História Aratos (-270) – zmienka v básni (45 súhv.) Eratostenes – 42 Hipparchos – katalóg 1080 hviezd = 49 súhvezdí Gaius Plinius (29-79) – 1600 hviezd = 79 skupín Klaudios Ptolemaios (Megale syntaxis) – 48 súhvezdí (21 sev., 15 juž., 12 zodiak) Almagest – arabský preklad Megale syntaxis (stredovek) antické súhvezdia sa nezachovali...snaha rekon.
    [Show full text]
  • Johannes Kepler*
    OpenStax-CNX module: m11962 1 Johannes Kepler* Albert Van Helden This work is produced by OpenStax-CNX and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License 1.0 Figure 1: Johannes Kepler Johannes Kepler was born in Weil der Stadt in Swabia, in southwest Germany. His paternal grandfather, Sebald Kepler, was a respected craftsman who served as mayor of the city; his maternal grandfather, Melchior Guldenmann, was an innkeeper and mayor of the nearby village of Eltingen. His father, Heinrich Kepler, was "an immoral, rough and quarrelsome soldier," according to Kepler, and he described his mother in similar unattering terms. From 1574 to 1576 Johannes lived with his grandparents; in 1576 his parents moved to nearby Leonberg, where Johannes entered the Latin school. In 1584 he entered the Protestant seminary at Adelberg, and in 1589 he began his university education at the Protestant university of Tnx{00FC}bingen. Here he studied theology and read widely. He passed the M.A. examination in 1591 and continued his studies as a graduate student. Kepler's teacher in the mathematical subjects was Michael Maestlin (1580-1635). Maestlin was one of the earliest astronomers to subscribe to Copernicus's heliocentric theory, although in his university lectures he taught only the Ptolemaic system. Only in what we might call graduate seminars did he acquaint his students, among whom was Kepler, with the technical details of the Copernican system. Kepler stated later that at this time he became a Copernican for "physical or, if you prefer, metaphysical reasons." *Version 1.2: May 25, 2004 11:13 am -0500 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/1.0 http://cnx.org/content/m11962/1.2/ OpenStax-CNX module: m11962 2 In 1594 Kepler accepted an appointment as professor of mathematics at the Protestant seminary in Graz (in the Austrian province of Styria).
    [Show full text]
  • In This Issue: Astrophysical Journal Letters and He Is the Author of Six Books and More Than 230 Articles on Theoretical 1….General Meeting Astrophysics
    The Rosette Gazette Volume 26,, IssueIssue 1 Newsletter of the Rose City Astronomers January, 2013 The Cosmological Spacetime Professor Fulvio Melia The "golden age" of relativity, from 1960 to 1974, was a period during which black holes were closely studied and understood. Cosmology today finds itself at a similar stage of development, with breathtaking observations now making it possible to more fully grasp the role played by general relativity in shaping our view of the origin and evolution of the cosmos as a whole. The Universe has much in common with black holes, and appears to be far simpler than once thought. Fulvio Melia is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Arizona and Associate Editor of The In This Issue: Astrophysical Journal Letters and he is the author of six books and more than 230 articles on theoretical 1….General Meeting astrophysics. 2….Club Officers He is especially known for his work on the galactic center, particularly developing a theoretical understanding of the central supermassive black hole, known as Sagittarius A*. With his students and collaborators, he was the first to propose imaging this object with millimeter-interferometry, which should be feasible within a few years, proving …...Magazines beyond any doubt that it possesses an event horizon, as predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. …...RCA Library Professor Melia is also a well-respected and popular publicist of astronomy and science in general, delivering many lectures at public venues, including museums and planetariums. His books have won several awards of distinction, 3.....RCA Board Minutes including the designation of Outstanding Academic Books by the American Library Association, and selection as worldwide astronomy books of the year by Astronomy magazine.
    [Show full text]
  • Johannes Kepler
    MAX CASPAR JOHANNES KEPLER Herausgegeben von der Kepler-Gesellschaft, Weil der Stadt Vierte Auflage Nachdruck der Dritten Auflage Ergänzt um ein vollständiges Quellenverzeichnis Stuttgart 1995 Verlag für Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik INHALT Geleitwort von Armin Hermann 5 Vorwort 7 Einleitung 13 Wandel im philosophischen und wissenschaftlichen Denken in der Renaissance 14 - Erwachen der astronomischen Forschung 17 - Kopernikus 18 - Der Glaubens- kampf im 16. Jahrhundert 20 I. Kindheit und Jugendjahre (1571-1594) 27 Geburt 27 - Vorfahren 27 - Weil der Stadt 30 - Familienverhältnisse 33 - Erster Schulunterricht 36 - Im Seminar 38 - Im Stift zu Tübingen 42 - Universitätsstudien und Lehrer 45 - Berufung nach Graz 52 II. Als Landschaftsmathematiker und Lehrer in Graz (1594-1600) 56 Kirchenpolitische Verhältnisse in Graz 56 - Die Stiftsschule und Keplers Tätigkeit an ihr 58 - Die ersten Kalender des Landschaftsmathematikers 62 - Seine tiefer- dringenden Studien 65 - Mysterium Cosmographicum 66 - Reise nach Württem- berg und Druck des Jugendwerks 69 - Inhalt dieses Werks 72 - Seine Aufnahme 75 - Heirat 78 - Beginn der Gegenreformation 85 - Erste Ausweisung und Rückkehr Keplers 88 - Haltung Keplers im Streit der Konfessionen 90 - Weitere wissen- schaftliche Arbeiten 96 - Erste Studien über die Welthannonie 103 - Keplers drückende Lage 110 - Besuch bei Tycho Brahe 113 - Pläne und Arbeiten nach der Rückkehr 124 - Verschärfte gegenreformatorische Maßnahmen und Ausweisung aus Graz 127 III. Als kaiserlicher Mathematiker in Prag (1600-1612) 133 Not der ersten Monate 133 - Tod Tycho Brahes und Ernennung zum kaiserlichen Mathematiker 139 - Astronomia Nova 141 - Zweites Planetengesetz 152 - Erstes Planetengesetz 154 - Bedeutung der Astronomia Nova 155 - Hindernisse bei der Drucklegung 159 - Astronomiae Pars Optica 162 - Die konfessionellen Verhält- nisse in Prag 167 - Kaiser Rudolph II.
    [Show full text]