Sunday, 8 May 2016

Miguel de Cervantes

06:24:00

Synopsis

Miguel de Cervantes turned into born near Madrid in 1547. He became a soldier in 1570 and changed into badly wounded inside the warfare of Lepanto. Captured via the Turks in 1575, Cervantes spent five years in jail. earlier than he become ransomed and back home. After much less a hit in advance efforts, Cervantes eventually achieved literary success in his later years, publishing the first part of Don Quixote in 1605. He died in 1616.
domestic

The fourth of seven kids, Miguel de Cervantes struggled financially for nearly his whole existence. His father, Rodrigo, deaf from start, labored as a healthcare professional—a lowly alternate on the time—and the own family moved round regularly in Cervantes young people as his father searched for higher possibilities.

some thing his circle of relatives's economic conditions, Cervantes changed into an avid reader as a baby—a talent he turned into reportedly taught by means of a relative. but whether or not he had an awful lot inside the way of formal schooling has been a topic of dialogue among scholars. primarily based on analyses of Cervantes's later paintings, some consider that he may additionally had been taught by way of the Jesuits, however, others dispute this declare.
Poet Soldier

Cervantes's first regarded posted writing dates to 1569, while he contributed a few poetry to a memorial collection after the loss of life of Elizabeth of Valois, the wife of Spain's King Philip II. but via the following year, Cervantes had put his pen apart and, instead, picked up a weapon, becoming a member of a Spanish army unit in Italy.

acknowledged for his bravery, Cervantes took part within the warfare of Lepanto in 1571. Stationed at the ship l.  a. Marquesa, he fought against the Ottoman Empire and sustained extreme injuries in the struggle, struggling two chest wounds and the entire maiming of his left hand. in spite of his incapacity, but, Cervantes persisted to function a soldier for numerous more years.

In 1575, Cervantes and his brother Rodrigo tried to go back to Spain, however they had been captured at some point of their voyage by way of a collection of Turkish ships. Cervantes sooner or later spent 5 years as a prisoner and a slave, and made numerous failed tries to escape all through his imprisonment. In 1580 he become eventually able to go back home after a ransom turned into paid for his release.
'Don Quixote'

In 1585, Cervantes posted his first novel, la Galatea, but the pastoral romance didn't make lots of a splash. around the equal time, Cervantes tried to make it the then-lucrative global of theater. (plays had been an vital shape of enjoyment in Spain during the era, and a a hit playwright should earn an awesome residing.) alas, Cervantes performed neither fortune nor fame together with his performs, and only two have survived.

inside the past due 1580s, Cervantes started out operating for the Spanish Armada as a commissary. It became a thankless process, which involved collecting grain elements from rural groups. when many did now not need to offer the desired goods, Cervantes was charged with mismanagement and ended up in jail. but, it changed into at some point of this trying time that he began to write some of literature's best masterpieces.

In 1605, Cervantes posted the primary a part of Don Quixote, a singular that tells the story of an elderly guy who will become so enamored with the aid of the old memories of brave knights that he seeks out his very own adventures. The identify individual quickly receives misplaced in his very own fantasy world, believing he is this type of knights, and convinces a negative peasant, Sancho Panza, to serve as his squire. in one scene, the deluded Don Quixote even fights a windmill, mistaking it for a massive. Quixote finally regains his senses before the radical ends.

Don Quixote became the sector's first high-quality seller and turned into in the end translated into greater than 60 distinctive languages. Cervantes published the second a part of the tale in 1615.
Unmarked

in spite of its undisputed vicinity within the literary canon, Don Quixote did now not make Cervantes rich at the time, as authors did no longer acquire royalties for his or her works. however, he continued to put in writing, placing to paintings on the Labors of Persiles and Segismunda, though he would no longer entire it before his demise on April 22, 1616, in Madrid. He changed into buried at the grounds of a convent there, in an unmarked grave.

seeing that his passing, Cervantes has been credited with writing the primary contemporary novel. His work has stimulated limitless other authors in the course of the centuries—consisting of Gustave Flaubert, Henry Fielding and Fyodor Dostoyevsky—and the story of Don Quixote has been retold in many approaches, which include within the famous musical the person of la Mancha and in an art work via Pablo Picasso.
non-public existence

Cervantes married Catalina de Salazar y Palacios in 1584, and the couple remained married till Cervantes's demise. though they in no way had any kids, Cervantes had an affair with actress Ana Franca de Rojas, with whom he had a daughter, Isabel de Saavedra in 1584.

Saturday, 7 May 2016

Mark Zuckerberg

21:52:00

Synopsis

Born on might also 14, 1984, in White Plains, new york, Mark Zuckerberg co-founded the social-networking internet site facebook out of his university dorm room. He left Harvard after his sophomore year to pay attention on the web page, the consumer base of which has grown to more than 250 million human beings, making Zuckerberg a billionaire. The start of facebook turned into currently portrayed within the film The Social community.
formative years

Mark Elliot Zuckerberg became born on may 14, 1984, in White Plains, ny, into a comfy, properly-educated own family, and raised within the close by village of Dobbs Ferry. His father, Edward Zuckerberg, ran a dental exercise connected to the family's domestic. His mother, Karen, labored as a psychiatrist earlier than the delivery of the couple's 4 youngsters—Mark, Randi, Donna and Arielle.

Zuckerberg evolved an interest in computers at an early age; whilst he turned into about 12, he used Atari primary to create a messaging application he named "Zucknet." His father used this system in his dental office, in order that the receptionist may want to tell him of a new patient without yelling across the room. The own family extensively utilized Zucknet to talk in the house. collectively along with his pals, he additionally created laptop games just for a laugh. "I had a gaggle of pals who had been artists," he stated. "they'd come over, draw stuff, and i'd build a recreation out of it."

To preserve up with Mark's burgeoning interest in computers, his dad and mom employed non-public computer train David Newman to come to the house once every week and work with Mark. Newman later informed reporters that it was difficult to live ahead of the prodigy, who started taking graduate guides at close by Mercy college round this equal time.

Zuckerberg later studied at Phillips Exeter Academy, an exclusive preparatory college in New Hampshire. There he confirmed expertise in fencing, becoming the captain of the school's team. He also excelled in literature, incomes a degree in classics. yet Zuckerberg remained fascinated by computers, and continued to work on growing new packages. whilst still in high college, he created an early model of the music software Pandora, which he called Synapse. several companies—consisting of AOL and Microsoft—expressed an interest in buying the software program, and hiring the youngster before graduation. He declined the offers.
Time at Harvard

After graduating from Exeter in 2002, Zuckerberg enrolled at Harvard university. through his sophomore 12 months on the ivy league group, he had evolved a popularity because the pass-to software developer on campus. It become at that point that he constructed a software referred to as CourseMatch, which helped students choose their lessons based at the direction picks of different customers. He additionally invented Facemash, which in comparison the photos of  students on campus and allowed users to vote on which one become greater appealing. this system became wildly popular, however become later shut down by using the faculty management after it became deemed beside the point.

based on the buzz of his previous tasks, three of his fellow students—Divya Narendra, and twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss—sought him out to work on an concept for a social networking website they referred to as Harvard Connection. This web site became designed to use information from Harvard's scholar networks so that it will create a relationship web site for the Harvard elite. Zuckerberg agreed to assist with the mission, however quickly dropped out to paintings on his personal social networking website with buddies Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin.

Zuckerberg and his pals created a website that allowed users to create their personal profiles, add pix, and speak with different customers. The organization ran the website online—first referred to as The facebook—out of a dorm room at Harvard till June 2004. After his sophomore year, Zuckerberg dropped out of college to devote himself to fb complete time, shifting the employer to Palo Alto, California. by using the end of 2004, facebook had 1 million customers.
The rise of facebook

In 2005, Zuckerberg's business enterprise obtained a massive raise from the venture capital company Accel partners. Accel invested $12.7 million into the community, which on the time turned into open best to ivy league college students. Zuckerberg's organisation then granted get right of entry to to different faculties, high school and international schools, pushing the site's membership to extra than 5.5 million customers by means of December 2005. The web site then began attracting the interest of other businesses, who desired to advertize with the famous social hub. now not looking to sell out, Zuckerberg became down gives from corporations which include Yahoo! and MTV Networks. as a substitute, he targeted on increasing the web site, commencing up his undertaking to out of doors developers and including greater capabilities.

Zuckerberg regarded to be going nowhere but up, however in 2006, the enterprise magnate faced his first huge hurdle. The creators of Harvard Connection claimed that Zuckerberg stole their concept, and insisted the software developer needed to pay for his or her commercial enterprise losses. Zuckerberg maintained that the ideas have been based totally on  very one-of-a-kind styles of social networks but, after legal professionals searched Zuckerberg's records, incriminating instant Messages revealed that Zuckerberg may additionally have intentionally stolen the highbrow property of Harvard Connection and supplied facebook customers' personal information to his buddies.

Zuckerberg later apologized for the incriminating messages, pronouncing he regretted them. "in case you're going to move directly to construct a carrier this is influential and that a number of people rely upon, then you need to be mature, proper?" he stated in an interview with the new Yorker. "I suppose i've grown and found out lots."

even though an initial agreement of $sixty five million become reached between the 2 parties, the legal dispute over the matter continued nicely into 2011, after Narendra and the Winklevosses claimed they have been misled regarding the cost of their inventory.

Zuckerberg confronted yet another private project whilst the 2009 e-book The accidental Billionaires, by using writer Ben Mezrich, hit stores. Mezrich changed into heavily criticized for his re-telling of Zuckerberg's tale, which used invented scenes, re-imagined communicate and fictional characters. regardless of how true-to-life the tale was, Mezrich managed to sell the rights of the tale to screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, and the seriously acclaimed film The Social community obtained eight Academy Award nominations.

Zuckerberg objected strongly to the movie's narrative, and later advised a reporter at the new Yorker that many of the info inside the film have been faulty. for instance, Zuckerberg has been relationship longtime lady friend Priscilla Chan, a chinese language-American scientific student he met at Harvard, since 2003. He also said he by no means had interest in becoming a member of any of the very last clubs. "it's thrilling what stuff they focused on getting proper; like, each single blouse and fleece that I had in that film is truely a shirt or fleece that I own," Zuckerberg advised a reporter at a begin-up convention in 2010. "So there's all these things that they were given incorrect and a bunch of random details that they got proper."

but Zuckerberg and fb endured to be triumphant, despite the grievance. Time magazine named him man or woman of the yr in 2010, and arrogance fair placed him on the top of their New establishment list. Forbes additionally ranked Zuckerberg at No. 35—beating out Apple CEO Steve Jobs—on its "four hundred" list, estimating his internet really worth to be $6.nine billion.
Philanthropic reasons

on account that gathering his widespread fortune, Zuckerberg has used his tens of millions to fund an expansion of philanthropic causes. The maximum remarkable examples got here in 2010. In September of that 12 months, he donated $one hundred million to save the failing Newark Public faculties device in New Jersey. Then, in December 2010, Zuckerberg signed the "Giving Pledge", promising to donate at least 50 percentage of his wealth to charity over the direction of his lifetime. different Giving Pledge contributors encompass bill Gates, Warren Buffett and George Lucas. After his donation, Zuckerberg known as on different younger, rich entrepreneurs to follow fit. "With a generation of younger oldsters who've thrived on the fulfillment in their businesses, there's a massive opportunity for a lot of us to offer again earlier in our lifetime and see the effect of our philanthropic efforts," he said.
Going Public

Zuckerberg made  essential lifestyles changes in may additionally 2012. facebook had its preliminary public offering, which raised $sixteen billion, making it the largest net IPO in history. How Zuckerberg's enterprise will cope with this influx of cash remains to be seen. however Zuckerberg can be searching at more acquisitions. He for my part negotiated the agency deal to buy Instragram the previous month.

After the preliminary fulfillment of the IPO, the fb stock fee dropped quite in the early days of buying and selling. but Zuckerberg is anticipated to climate any united states of americaand downs in his business enterprise's market performance. He holds more than 1 / 4 of its inventory and keeps fifty seven percent manage of the voting shares.

On may 19, 2012—a day after the IPO—Zuckerberg wed his longtime lady friend, Priscilla Chan. about 100 humans accumulated at the couple's Palo Alto, California home. The guests concept they had been there to have a good time Chan's graduation from medical faculty, but instead they witnessed Zuckerberg and Chan alternate vows. In may also 2013, fb made the Fortune 500 listing for the first time—making Zuckerberg, on the age of 28, the youngest CEO at the listing.

In November 2015, Zuckerberg and Chan welcomed a daughter, Max, and Zuckerberg introduced he could be taking  months of paternity leave to spend together with his circle of relatives. He and his spouse also pledged in an open letter to their daughter that they might give ninety nine percent in their fb shares to charity. "we're devoted to doing our small part to help create this world for all children," the couple wrote in the open letter that changed into posted on Zuckerberg's facebook web page. "we will supply 99% of our facebook stocks — presently about $45 billion — in the course of our lives to sign up for many others in enhancing this international for the next generation."

Monday, 2 March 2015

Jābir ibn Hayyān

03:16:00

Jabir bin Hayyan was born in 721 A.D. in the Persian city of Tus. He gained excellence in the fields of Alchemy, Astronomy, Physics, Pharmacy, Philosophy, Astrology, and Geography. He has been found to acknowledge the early works of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and Pythagoras, as well as, the prominent Muslim jurist Imam Jafar as-Sadiq’s knowledge on alchemy, chemistry, philosophy, and astronomy.
Achievements:
Jabir bin Hayyan prepared chemicals, discovered many acids, and prepared, as well as, improved many chemical processes. He stressed the significance of experimenting one’s theory, and this is why we see a lot of inventions and discoveries made by him. In fact, he was the one who introduced experimental techniques in the field of chemistry.
He gave a detailed description of acetic acid, tartaric acid, and citric acid. Discovery of hydrochloric acid, sulphuric acid, and nitric acid are few of the greatest contributions made by Jabir bin Hayyan. He combined nitric acid with the hydrochloric acid and invented another acid termed today as “Aqua Regia”. The latter is strong enough to dissolve gold.
He discovered chemical procedures as significant as crystallization, melting, distillation, calcination, reduction, liquidation, and sublimation. Dyeing of cloth and leather, as well as, preparation of steel are also associated with this great Islamic scientist. His division of substance into three different classes worked as the basis for modern day classification of metals and non metals.
He worked hard for devising methods to refine and purify metals. We get to know from his works that he was dedicated towards finding out the individual properties of elements. Preparation of antimony, basic lead carbonate, and arsenic from their respective sulphides also connects back to Jabir bin Hayyan.
According to historians, Jabir respected his mentor Imam Jafar As-Sadiq a lot. To fulfil his teacher’s desire, Jabir bin Hayyan made revolutionary inventions including;
- A Substance that could rust proof iron surfaces, while waterproof cloth.
- A paper that couldn’t catch fire.
- An ink which could be seen and read in the dark (at night time).
Books and Treatises:
Around 3000 books and treatises are attributed to the name of Jabir bin Hayyan. The topics are diverse in nature; ranging from music, magic, philosophy, logic and metaphysics to chemistry, alchemy, physics, medicine, astrology, geography, and astronomy.
The “Book of Seventy” is a collection of his various works like “Book of Venus”. Other noteworthy works of Jabir bin Hayyan include Book of Stones, Book of 112, Composition of Alchemy, Kitaab-ur-Rahmah, and Kitab-ut-Tajmee.
His research has been translated to many European languages, and has been used in western educational institutions for centuries. This is why he is called the ‘Father of Modern Chemistry’.

Sunday, 1 March 2015

Ibn al-Haytham

18:46:00



Ibn al-Haytham is sometimes called al-Basri, meaning from the city of Basra in Iraq, and sometimes called al-Misri, meaning that he came from Egypt. He is often known as Alhazen which is the Latinised version of his first name "al-Hasan".
In particular this name occurs in the naming of the problem for which he is best remembered, namely Alhazen's problem:
Given a light source and a spherical mirror, find the point on the mirror were the light will be reflected to the eye of an observer.
We shall discuss this problem, and ibn al-Haytham's other work, after giving some biographical details. In contrast to our lack of knowledge of the lives of many of the Arabic mathematicians, we have quite a number of details of ibn al-Haytham's life. However, although these details are in broad agreement with each other, they do contradict each other in several ways. We must therefore try to determine which are more likely to be accurate. It is worth commenting that an autobiography written by ibn al-Haytham in 1027 survives, but it says nothing of the events his life and concentrates on his intellectual development.
Since the main events that we know of in ibn al-Haytham's life involve his time in Egypt, we should set the scene regarding that country. The Fatimid political and religious dynasty took its name from Fatimah, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad. The Fatimids headed a religious movement dedicated to taking over the whole of the political and religious world of Islam. As a consequence they refused to recognise the 'Abbasid caliphs. The Fatimid caliphs ruled North Africa and Sicily during the first half of the 10th century, but after a number of unsuccessful attempts to defeat Egypt, they began a major advance into that country in 969 conquering the Nile Valley. They founded the city of Cairo as the capital of their new empire. These events were happening while ibn al-Haytham was a young boy growing up in Basra.
We know little of ibn al-Haytham's years in Basra. In his autobiography he explains how, as a youth, he thought about the conflicting religious views of the various religious movements and came to the conclusion that none of them represented the truth. It appears that he did not devote himself to the study of mathematics and other academic topics at a young age but trained for what might be best described as a civil service job. He was appointed as a minister for Basra and the surrounding region. However, ibn al-Haytham became increasingly unhappy with his deep studies of religion and made a decision to devote himself entirely to a study of science which he found most clearly described in the writings of Aristotle. Having made this decision, ibn al-Haytham kept to it for the rest of his life devoting all his energies to mathematics, physics, and other sciences.
Ibn al-Haytham went to Egypt some considerable time after he made the decision to give up his job as a minister and to devote himself to science, for he had made his reputation as a famous scientist while still in Basra. We do know that al-Hakim was Caliph when ibn al-Haytham reached Egypt. Al-Hakim was the second of the Fatimid caliphs to begin his reign in Egypt; al-Aziz was the first of the Fatimid caliphs to do so. Al-Aziz became Caliph in 975 on the death of his father al-Mu'izz. He was very involved in military and political ventures in northern Syria trying to expand the Fatimid empire. For most of his 20 year reign he worked towards this aim. Al-Aziz died in 996 while organising an army to march against the Byzantines and al-Hakim, who was eleven years old at the time, became Caliph.
Al-Hakim, despite being a cruel leader who murdered his enemies, was a patron of the sciences employing top quality scientists such as the astronomer ibn Yunus. His support for science may have been partly because of his interest in astrology. Al-Hakim was highly eccentric, for example he ordered the sacking of the city of al-Fustat, he ordered the killing of all dogs since their barking annoyed him, and he banned certain vegetables and shellfish. However al-Hakim kept astronomical instruments in his house overlooking Cairo and built up a library which was only second in importance to that of the House of Wisdom over 150 years earlier.
Our knowledge of ibn al-Haytham's interaction with al-Hakim comes from a number of sources, the most important of which is the writings of al-Qifti. We are told that al-Hakim learnt of a proposal by ibn al-Haytham to regulate the flow of water down the Nile. He requested that ibn al-Haytham come to Egypt to carry out his proposal and al-Hakim appointed him to head an engineering team which would undertake the task. However, as the team travelled further and further up the Nile, ibn al-Haytham realised that his idea to regulate the flow of water with large constructions would not work.
Ibn al-Haytham returned with his engineering team and reported to al-Hakim that they could not achieve their aim. Al-Hakim, disappointed with ibn al-Haytham's scientific abilities, appointed him to an administrative post. At first ibn al-Haytham accepted this but soon realised that al-Hakim was a dangerous man whom he could not trust. It appears that ibn al-Haytham pretended to be mad and as a result was confined to his house until after al-Hakim's death in 1021. During this time he undertook scientific work and after al-Hakim's death he was able to show that he had only pretended to be mad. According to al-Qifti, ibn al-Haytham lived for the rest of his life near the Azhar Mosque in Cairo writing mathematics texts, teaching and making money by copying texts. Since the Fatimids founded the University of Al-Azhar based on this mosque in 970, ibn al-Haytham must have been associated with this centre of learning.
A different report says that after failing in his mission to regulate the Nile, ibn al-Haytham fled from Egypt to Syria where he spent the rest of his life. This however seems unlikely for other reports certainly make it certain that ibn al-Haytham was in Egypt in 1038. One further complication is the title of a work ibn al-Haytham wrote in 1027 which is entitled Ibn al-Haytham's answer to a geometrical question addressed to him in Baghdad. Several different explanations are possible, the simplest of which being that he visited Baghdad for a short time before returning to Egypt. He may also have spent some time in Syria which would partly explain the other version of the story. Yet another version has ibn al-Haytham pretending to be mad while still in Basra.
Ibn al-Haytham's writings are too extensive for us to be able to cover even a reasonable amount. He seems to have written around 92 works of which, remarkably, over 55 have survived. The main topics on which he wrote were optics, including a theory of light and a theory of vision, astronomy, and mathematics, including geometry and number theory. We will give at least an indication of his contributions to these areas.
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