Cleopatra

INTRODUCTION

Cleopatra (69-30 BC), ill-fated queen of Egypt (51-30 BC), the last monarch of Egypt and the last ruler of the Ptolemaic dynasty. In attempting to maintain Egypt’s independence from Rome, Cleopatra formed alliances (famously involving love affairs) with the Roman generals and statesmen Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Her strategy ultimately failed, however, as Caesar’s heir Octavian (who became the first emperor of Rome as Augustus in 27 BC) conquered Egypt and made it a Roman province. Faced with a crushing defeat, Cleopatra committed suicide.

RISE TO THE THRONE
Cleopatra descended from a long line of Macedonian (Greek) rulers whose reign over Egypt began in 323 BC with the death of Alexander the Great. That year, Alexander’s Macedonian generals divided his vast empire among themselves, with Ptolemy taking Egypt as his share. Thereafter the Ptolemies ruled from the port city of Alexandria, a flourishing cultural and commercial center that Alexander had founded in 332 BC.

However, by Cleopatra’s time the Ptolemaic dynasty was fraught with internal power struggles, and its grip over Egypt was weakening. In addition, Rome was relentlessly expanding its domains and wanted to control Egypt and its vast wealth. In 58 BC the Romans took over Cyprus, which had been part of the Ptolemies’ empire for more than 200 years. Cleopatra’s father, Ptolemy XII, ascended to the throne and maintained Egypt’s nominal status as an independent kingdom only by giving generous bribes to powerful Roman senators.

Ptolemy XII died in July 51 BC. In accordance with his wishes, Cleopatra succeeded jointly to the throne with her eldest brother, Ptolemy XIII, after the two were married. The Ptolemaic dynasty had long followed the Egyptian custom of marriage between brother and sister in ruling families. In this way, the Ptolemies had maintained a purely Macedonian bloodline. Cleopatra was the first of her dynasty to learn the Egyptian language.

Cleopatra became queen of Egypt at the age of 18, while her co-ruling brother was only about 10. At first Cleopatra dominated the throne, but in the third year of her reign Ptolemy XIII’s chief advisers Pothinus and Achillas contrived against her, driving her into exile in Syria (then a Roman province). Not easily deterred, Cleopatra raised an army to regain her rightful place on the throne. In 48 BC the forces of Ptolemy XIII and Cleopatra met at Pelusium, at the eastern edge of the Nile Delta, and prepared for battle. However, they received messages from Roman general Julius Caesar urging them to return to Alexandria to settle their differences. Caesar, who had arrived at Alexandria in pursuit of his defeated rival Pompey, claimed the right to arbitrate the quarrel as the representative of Rome. Ptolemy returned to Alexandria, leaving Cleopatra behind.

CLEOPATRA AND CAESAR
Determined to present her case to Caesar, Cleopatra secretly sailed to Alexandria, entering the harbor at night in a small boat with her attendant Apollodorus. Then she rolled herself up in a carpet (or bedding, according to some sources), and Apollodorus smuggled her into Caesar’s quarters in the royal palace. Her ingenuity, intelligence, and powers of persuasion must have impressed Caesar, for the next day he had Cleopatra restored to the throne in joint rule with Ptolemy XIII.

However, Pothinus and Achillas fomented a rebellion against Caesar, surrounding him in Alexandria with about 20,000 soldiers. During the ensuing Alexandrian War in 48-47 BC, Pothinus was executed on Caesar’s orders and Ptolemy XIII drowned in the Nile in the course of battle. With this victory Caesar easily could have declared Egypt a Roman province, but instead he retained Cleopatra as queen. Cleopatra was obligated by custom to marry her other younger brother, Ptolemy XIV, who was about 12 years old.

Meanwhile, Caesar and Cleopatra had become lovers, and Caesar delayed attending to important matters of state to remain in Egypt. Cleopatra took him on a sightseeing cruise up the Nile, sailing the royal barge and 400 of Caesar’s ships in a display of power to her people. In 47 BC Cleopatra gave birth to a son, naming him Ptolemy Caesarion (“Little Caesar”).

The following year Cleopatra joined Caesar in Rome, bringing Caesarion and Ptolemy XIV with her. She lived in one of Caesar’s villas as his mistress and ruled Egypt by dispatch. Meanwhile, many Romans grew suspicious of Caesar’s near-absolute power. Rumors spread that he intended to subvert the Roman Republic and establish a monarchy, ruling as a king with Cleopatra, a despised foreigner, as his queen. In 44 BC a mob of Roman senators assassinated Caesar. Cleopatra quickly returned to Egypt, her power no longer secured by Caesar’s influence. Ptolemy XIV died suddenly in 43 BC, and Cleopatra is said to have poisoned him. She made her toddler son Caesarion co-regent, crowning him as Ptolemy XV.

CLEOPATRA AND ANTONY

Roman Civil War
Following Caesar’s death, the Roman world plunged into civil war. The chief conspirators in his assassination, the Roman senators Marcus Junius Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, believed his death would restore the domination of the Roman Senate, taking power out of the hands of the generals.

However, a triumvirate formed in 43 BC to defend Caesar’s legacy. The triumvirate comprised Caesar’s chief deputy and co-consul Mark Antony, Caesar’s grandnephew and designated heir Gaius Octavian, and Antony’s ally Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. The three men joined their forces to fight against those of Brutus and Cassius.

Cleopatra was approached for support by Cassius, who vied for control over Syria against Publius Cornelius Dolabella, an officer who claimed the province for the triumvirate. Cleopatra sided with Dolabella and sent three legions to his aid, but he lost his claim to Syria and the troops went over to Cassius. Cleopatra later sailed from Alexandria with her fleet to offer assistance but a storm forced her to turn back. Nevertheless, in October 42 BC Antony and Octavian emerged victorious in the Battle of Philippi, and Brutus and Cassius committed suicide. The three victors then divided the Roman domains among themselves, with Antony taking the eastern part.

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Jules Verne

Jules Verne (1828-1905), French author, who is often regarded as the father of science fiction. He was born in Nantes, France, and ran away to sea at the age of 11. After he was sent home in disgrace, he vowed to travel only in his imagination. He carried out this pledge in more than 50 works that combine scientific fantasy and exciting adventure.

Verne studied law in Paris, and from 1848 until 1863 wrote opera librettos and plays. His interest in science and geographical discovery led him to write on the possibility of exploring Africa in a balloon. Many publishers rejected this work, until one publisher suggested he rewrite it in the form of an adventure story. The result was Cinq semaines en ballon (1863; Five Weeks in a Balloon, 1869). Its success encouraged Verne to write other tales of adventure in distant lands. He based them on his wide reading.
Verne rode a wave of 19th-century interest in science and invention to enormous popular favor. Laying a carefully documented scientific foundation for his fantastic adventure stories, he forecast with remarkable accuracy many scientific achievements of the 20th century. He anticipated flights into outer space, submarines, helicopters, air conditioning, guided missiles, and motion pictures long before they were developed.
Verne’s best-known work is Le tour du monde en quatre-vingt jours (1873; Around the World In Eighty Days, 1873). The book’s hero is Phileas Fogg, an English gentleman noted for his cool-headedness and ingenuity. During a discussion at his London club, Fogg bets that he can travel around the world in 80 days, a seemingly impossible task at that time. He is accompanied on the journey by his French valet, Passepartout, and by Detective Fix, who has been sent by the club to observe his progress. During their adventures in many parts of the world, Fogg masters every obstacle with unflappable ease. He completes the journey with ten minutes to spare.

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Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun or Tutankhamen, Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty who ruled from about 1333 to 1323 bc. He succeeded Akhenaton on the throne of ancient Egypt. Tutankhamun was either the son-in-law of Akhenaton or Akhenaton’s son by a minor wife. Akhenaton had replaced the ancient Egyptian religion, which had many gods, with the worship of the sun god Aton, with whom he identified strongly. Akhenaton had also moved the Egyptian capital from Thebes, associated with the worship of the god Amon, to a new capital, Akhetaton, devoted to the celebration of Aton. These actions brought him into conflict with powerful priests, who bitterly fought the changes. Tutankhamun was born at the new capital and named Tutankhaten (meaning “living image of Aton”) at birth.

Tutankhaten became pharaoh at about the age of 9 and ruled until his death at about the age of 18. His claim to the throne came through his marriage to Ankhesenpaaten, Akhenaton’s daughter. Because he was still a child, he received guidance from older court officials who had served under Akhenaton. Peace was brought to Egypt during his reign. The worship of Amon was restored and Thebes, the city sacred to Amon, was again made Egypt’s capital. Tutankhaten then changed his name to Tutankhamun to honor Amon, and his wife became Ankhesenamun. Ay, an aged official who had guided Tutankhamun, succeeded him and married Ankhesenamun.

Tutankhamun ruled only a short time and little is known about his reign. He is well known today because his tomb, containing fabulous treasures, was found virtually intact in 1922 by British archaeologists Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon. The tomb consisted of a passageway and four connected chambers that were decorated with wall paintings and filled with a rich array of objects. The thousands of objects ranged from gold-covered chariots, chairs, beds, lamps, and jewelry to wearing apparel, writing equipment, and even a lock of Tutankhamun’s grandmother’s hair. In the burial chamber itself, placed inside three coffins, lay the mummy of Tutankhamun, the face covered by a gold mask inlaid with lapis lazuli and colored glass. The discovery of the tomb gave the world a detailed idea of the grandeur of royal life in ancient Egypt.

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Steven Spielberg

I INTRODUCTION

Steven Spielberg, born in 1946, American motion-picture director, producer, and executive, whose movies feature action, suspense, special-effects wizardry, and memorable stories. Spielberg films such as Jaws (1975), E.T.—The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), and Schindler’s List (1993) enjoyed enormous commercial success and earned recognition for their craftsmanship.

Spielberg was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, and educated at California State College at Long Beach (now California State University at Long Beach). He began making movies at the age of 12, and by the time he left college he had at least eight amateur works to his credit. Spielberg’s short film Amblin’ (1968) came to the attention of Universal Pictures, which signed him to a seven-year contract.

II EARLY DIRECTORIAL SUCCESSES
Spielberg’s earliest commercial efforts were television movies, among them Duel (1971), a suspense film that brought him wider recognition. Sugarland Express (1974), Spielberg’s first full-length feature film, was an expertly crafted variant on the road picture. It was soon followed by Jaws, a thriller based on American author Peter Benchley’s novel about a great white shark that terrorizes a beach community. Jaws proved a tremendous success, established Spielberg’s reputation as a director, and heralded a new era of blockbuster films with large gross revenues. Other Spielberg films of the 1970s included the science-fiction epic Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and an unsuccessful historical farce, 1941 (1979).

Spielberg teamed up with writer-producer George Lucas in the 1980s to make the action-adventure Indiana Jones film series: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Other directorial projects during this period included the science-fiction fantasy E.T.—The Extra-Terrestrial, at the time the highest-grossing film ever made; The Color Purple (1985), a drama based on the novel by Alice Walker; Empire of the Sun (1987), based on an autobiographical novel by J. G. Ballard about a young boy’s struggle to survive in Japanese-occupied Shanghai at the beginning of

III FIRST PRODUCTION COMPANY
In the late 1970s Spielberg began to get involved with production and screenwriting. In 1984 he established an independent production unit called Amblin Entertainment. Under this company he produced such films as Gremlins (1984), Back to the Future (1985), Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), *batteries not included (1987), Back to the Future II (1989), Arachnophobia (1990), Cape Fear (1991), and The Flintstones (1994). He also produced the animated features An American Tail (1986), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988), An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991), and We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story (1993).

IV FIRST ACADEMY AWARD
In 1993 Spielberg released Jurassic Park, which featured spectacular computer-created dinosaurs and became within four weeks of its release the top-grossing motion picture to that time. Later that year Schindler’s List, a powerful black-and-white epic about loss and survival during the Holocaust, earned critical acclaim for Spielberg and won Academy Awards for best director and best picture. It was Spielberg’s first Academy Award for best director, although the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had honored him with the Irving Thalberg Award in 1987.

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Albert Einstein

The German-American physicist Albert Einstein, b. Ulm, Germany, Mar. 14, 1879, d. Princeton, N.J., Apr. 18, 1955, contributed more than any other scientist to the 20th-century vision of physical reality. In the wake of World War I, Einstein’s theories–especially his theory of relativity–seemed to many people to point to a pure quality of human thought, one far removed from the war and its aftermath. Seldom has a scientist received such public attention for having cultivated the fruit of pure learning.

EARLY LIFE
Einstein’s parents, who were nonobservant Jews, moved from Ulm to Munich when Einstein was an infant. The family business was the manufacture of electrical apparatus; when the business failed (1894), the family moved to Milan, Italy. At this time Einstein decided officially to relinquish his German citizenship. Within a year, still without having completed secondary school, Einstein failed an examination that would have allowed him to pursue a course of study leading to a diploma as an electrical engineer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (the Zurich Polytechnic). He spent the next year in nearby Aarau at the cantonal secondary school, where he enjoyed excellent teachers and first-rate facilities in physics. Einstein returned in 1896 to the Zurich Polytechnic, where he graduated (1900) as a secondary school teacher of mathematics and physics.

After a lean two years he obtained a post at the Swiss patent office in Bern. The patent-office work required Einstein’s careful attention, but while employed (1902-09) there, he completed an astonishing range of publications in theoretical physics. For the most part these texts were written in his spare time and without the benefit of close contact with either the scientific literature or theoretician colleagues. Einstein submitted one of his scientific papers to the University of Zurich to obtain a Ph.D. degree in 1905. In 1908 he sent a second paper to the University of Bern and became privatdocent, or lecturer, there. The next year Einstein received a regular appointment as associate professor of physics at the University of Zurich.

By 1909, Einstein was recognized throughout German-speaking Europe as a leading scientific thinker. In quick succession he held professorships at the German University of Prague and at the Zurich Polytechnic. In 1914 he advanced to the most prestigious and best-paying post that a theoretical physicist could hold in central Europe: professor at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Gesellschaft in Berlin. Although Einstein held a cross-appointment at the University of Berlin, from this time on he never again taught regular university courses. Einstein remained on the staff at Berlin until 1933, from which time until his death (1955) he held an analogous research position at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J.

SCIENTIFIC WORK

The 1905 Papers
In the first of three seminal papers published in 1905, Einstein examined the phenomenon discovered by Max Planck, according to which electromagnetic energy seemed to be emitted from radiating objects in quantities that were ultimately discrete. The energy of these quantities–the so-called light-quanta–was directly proportional to the frequency of the radiation. This circumstance was perplexing because classical electromagnetic theory, based on Maxwell’s equations and the laws of thermodynamics, had assumed that electromagnetic energy consisted of waves propagating in a hypothetical, all-pervasive medium called the luminiferous ether, and that the waves could contain any amount of energy no matter how small. Einstein used Planck’s quantum hypothesis to describe visible electromagnetic radiation, or light. According to Einstein’s heuristic viewpoint, light could be imagined to consist of discrete bundles of radiation. Einstein used this interpretation to explain the photoelectric effect, by which certain metals emit electrons when illuminated by light with a given frequency. Einstein’s theory, and his subsequent elaboration of it, formed the basis for much of quantum mechanics.

The second of Einstein’s 1905 papers proposed what is today called the special theory of relativity. At the time Einstein knew that, according to Hendrik Antoon Lorentz’s theory of electrons, the mass of an electron increased as the velocity of the electron approached the velocity of light. Einstein also knew that the electron theory, based on Maxwell’s equations, carried along with it the assumption of a luminiferous ether, but that attempts to detect the physical properties of the ether had not succeeded. Einstein realized that the equations describing the motion of an electron in fact could describe the nonaccelerated motion of any particle or any suitably defined rigid body. He based his new kinematics on a reinterpretation of the classical principle of relativity–that the laws of physics had to have the same form in any frame of reference. As a second fundamental hypothesis, Einstein assumed that the speed of light remained constant in all frames of reference, as required by classical Maxwellian theory. Einstein abandoned the hypothesis of the ether, for it played no role in his kinematics or in his reinterpretation of Lorentz’s theory of electrons. As a consequence of his theory Einstein recovered the phenomenon of time dilatation, wherein time, analogous to length and mass, is a function of the velocity of a frame of reference ( Fitzgerald-Lorentz contraction). Later in 1905, Einstein elaborated how, in a certain manner of speaking, mass and energy were equivalent. Einstein was not the first to propose all the elements that went into the special theory of relativity; his contribution lies in having unified important parts of classical mechanics and Maxwellian electrodynamics.

The third of Einstein’s seminal papers of 1905 concerned statistical mechanics, a field of study that had been elaborated by, among others, Ludwig Boltzmann and Josiah Willard Gibbs. Unaware of Gibbs’ contributions, Einstein extended Boltzmann’s work and calculated the average trajectory of a microscopic particle buffeted by random collisions with molecules in a fluid or in a gas. Einstein observed that his calculations could account for brownian motion, the apparently erratic movement of pollen in fluids, which had been noted by the British botanist Robert Brown. Einstein’s paper provided convincing evidence for the physical existence of atom-sized molecules, which had already received much theoretical discussion. His results were independently discovered by the Polish physicist Marian von Smoluchowski and later elaborated by the French physicist Jean Perrin.

The General Theory of Relativity
After 1905, Einstein continued working in all three of the above areas. He made important contributions to the quantum theory, but increasingly he sought to extend the special theory of relativity to phenomena involving acceleration. The key to an elaboration emerged in 1907 with the principle of equivalence, in which gravitational acceleration was held a priori indistinguishable from acceleration caused by mechanical forces; gravitational mass was therefore identical with inertial mass. Einstein elevated this identity, which is implicit in the work of Isaac Newton, to a guiding principle in his attempts to explain both electromagnetic and gravitational acceleration according to one set of physical laws. In 1907 he proposed that if mass were equivalent to energy, then the principle of equivalence required that gravitational mass would interact with the apparent mass of electromagnetic radiation, which includes light. By 1911, Einstein was able to make preliminary predictions about how a ray of light from a distant star, passing near the Sun, would appear to be attracted, or bent slightly, in the direction of the Sun’s mass. At the same time, light radiated from the Sun would interact with the Sun’s mass, resulting in a slight change toward the infrared end of the Sun’s optical spectrum. At this juncture Einstein also knew that any new theory of gravitation would have to account for a small but persistent anomaly in the perihelion motion of the planet Mercury.
About 1912, Einstein began a new phase of his gravitational research, with the help of his mathematician friend Marcel Grossmann, by phrasing his work in terms of the tensor calculus of Tullio Levi-Civita and Gregorio Ricci-Curbastro. The tensor calculus greatly facilitated calculations in four-dimensional space-time, a notion that Einstein had obtained from Hermann Minkowski’s 1907 mathematical elaboration of Einstein’s own special theory of relativity. Einstein called his new work the general theory of relativity. After a number of false starts, he published (late 1915) the definitive form of the general theory. In it the gravitational field equations were covariant; that is, similar to Maxwell’s equations, the field equations took the same form in all equivalent frames of reference. To their advantage from the beginning, the covariant field equations gave the observed perihelion motion of the planet Mercury. In its original form, Einstein’s general relativity has been verified numerous times in the past 60 years, especially during solar-eclipse expeditions when Einstein’s light-deflection prediction could be tested.

LATER LIFE
When British eclipse expeditions in 1919 confirmed his predictions, Einstein was lionized by the popular press. Einstein’s personal ethics also fired public imagination. Einstein, who after returning to Germany in 1914 did not reapply for German citizenship, was one of only a handful of German professors who remained a pacifist and did not support Germany’s war aims. After the war, when the victorious allies sought to exclude German scientists from international meetings, Einstein–a Jew traveling with a Swiss passport–remained an acceptable German envoy. Einstein’s political views as a pacifist and a Zionist pitted him against conservatives in Germany, who branded him a traitor and a defeatist. The public success accorded his theories of relativity evoked savage attacks in the 1920s by the anti-Semitic physicists Johannes Stark and Philipp Lenard, men who after 1932 tried to create a so-called Aryan physics in Germany. Just how controversial the theories of relativity remained for less flexibly minded physicists is revealed in the circumstances surrounding Einstein’s reception of a Nobel Prize in 1921–it was awarded not for relativity but for his 1905 work on the photoelectric effect.

With the rise of fascism in Germany, Einstein moved (1933) to the United States and abandoned his pacifism. He reluctantly agreed that the new menace had to be put down through force of arms. In this context Einstein sent (1939) a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that urged that the United States proceed to develop an atomic bomb before Germany did. The letter, composed by Einstein’s friend Leo Szilard, was one of many exchanged between the White House and Einstein, and it contributed to Roosevelt’s decision to fund what became the Manhattan Project.
However much he appeared to the public as a champion of unpopular causes, such as his objection in the 1950s to the House Committee on Un-American Activities and his efforts toward nuclear disarmament, Einstein’s central concerns always revolved around physics. At the age of 59, when other theoretical physicists would long since have abandoned original scientific research, Einstein and his co-workers Leopold Infeld and Banesh Hoffmann achieved a major new result in the general theory of relativity.

Until the end of his life Einstein sought a unified field theory, whereby the phenomena of gravitation and electromagnetism could be derived from one set of equations. Few physicists followed Einstein’s path in the years after 1920. Quantum mechanics, instead of general relativity, drew their attention. For his part, Einstein could never accept the new quantum mechanics with its principle of indeterminacy, as formulated by Werner Heisenberg and elaborated into a new epistemology by Niels Bohr. Although Einstein’s later thoughts were neglected for decades, physicists today refer seriously and awesomely to Einstein’s dream–a grand unification of physical theory.

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Galileo

Galileo (GAL uh LAY oh or GAL uh LEE oh) (1564-1642), an Italian astronomer and physicist, has been called the founder of modern experimental science. Galileo made the first effective use of the refracting telescope to discover important new facts about astronomy. He also discovered the law of falling bodies as well as the law of the pendulum. Galileo designed a variety of scientific instruments. He also developed and improved the refracting telescope, though he did not invent it.

Early Life
Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa on Feb. 15, 1564. In the early 1570′s, his family moved to Florence, and Galileo began his formal education at a school in a nearby monastery. Galileo’s father, determined that his son should be a doctor, sent him to the University of Pisa in 1581. Galileo studied medicine and the philosophy of Aristotle for the next four years.

Early Scientific Interests
Galileo’s years as a student at Pisa marked a turning point for him. Never really interested in medicine, he discovered he had a talent for mathematics. In 1585, he persuaded his father to let him leave the university. Back in Florence with his family, Galileo spent the next four years as a tutor in mathematics. During this time, he began to question Aristotelian philosophy and scientific thought. At the same time, he gained his first public notice with his new hydrostatic balance, an instrument used to find the specific gravity of objects by weighing them in water.

In 1589, Galileo was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Pisa. This position required him to teach courses in astronomy on the basis of the Greek astronomer Ptolemy’s theory that the sun and all the planets revolve around the earth. Preparing for these courses deepened Galileo’s understanding of astronomical theory. In 1592, he took up duties as professor of mathematics at the University of Padua, where he spent the next 18 years. During this time, he became convinced of the truth of the theory, proposed by the Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, that all planets, including the earth, revolve around the sun.

Mature Scientific Career
In 1609, while still at Padua, Galileo built his first telescope. Turning it to the sky, he saw clear evidence that many of Aristotle’s and Ptolemy’s claims about the heavens were false. Galileo’s first discovery was that, far from being perfectly smooth, as Aristotle and Ptolemy had thought, the moon was mountainous and pitted, much like the earth. He made his most sensational discovery in 1610, when he discovered four moons circling Jupiter. He named these moons the “Medicean Planets,” in the hope of winning the favor of the Medicis, the ruling family of Florence.
In 1610, Cosimo de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, named Galileo his personal mathematician. This position brought Galileo back to Florence, where he continued his studies of the heavens. He made observations of sunspots and of Venus, noting that the planet progresses through phases similar to those of the moon. This fact confirmed his doubts about Ptolemaic astronomy and deepened his conviction of the truth of Copernicus’ theory that the earth and planets revolve around the sun. Publication of these findings, starting in 1610, brought him wide renown.

Galileo also pursued research on motion — especially the motion of freely falling bodies. The problem, as he saw it, was that the Aristotelian theory of motion, which referred all motion to a stationary earth at the center of the universe, made it impossible to believe the earth actually moves. Galileo went to work to develop a theory of motion consistent with a moving earth.

Among the most important results of this search were the law of the pendulum and the law of freely falling bodies. Galileo observed that pendulums of equal length swing at the same rate whether their arcs are large or small. Modern measuring instruments show that the rate is actually somewhat greater if the arc is large. Galileo’s law of falling bodies states that all objects fall at the same speed, regardless of their mass; and that, as they fall, the speed of their descent increases uniformly.

Galileo and the Roman Catholic Church
Galileo’s quick wit, which he often used to ridicule his opponents, earned him a number of enemies. In 1613, Galileo wrote a letter in which he tried to show that the Copernican theory was consistent with both Catholic doctrine and proper Biblical interpretation. Some of his enemies sent a copy of this letter to the inquisitors in Rome, who sought out and punished heretics — people who opposed church teachings. In early 1616, Galileo was summoned to Rome for a determination on the orthodoxy of his views. Although he was cleared of charges of heresy, he was ordered not “to hold or defend” the Copernican theory. That is, he could treat the theory hypothetically but not treat it as if it were true.

In 1632, Galileo published his first scientific masterpiece, the Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. In this work, he compared the Ptolemaic-Aristotelian theory to the Copernican theory to show that the Copernican system was logically superior. Once again Galileo was summoned to Rome, this time to answer to the charge of willfully disobeying the order not “to hold or defend” Copernicus’ theory. In 1633, the Inquisition found Galileo guilty of the charge, forced him to recant (publicly withdraw his statement), and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
Because of Galileo’s advanced age and poor health, the church allowed him to serve his imprisonment under house arrest in a villa outside Florence. There, he passed the remainder of his years in relative isolation, eventually becoming blind. But he managed to complete his second scientific masterpiece, the Discourse on Two New Sciences, published in 1638. In this work, Galileo provided both a mathematical proof of his new theory of motion and an original study of the tensile strength of materials. He died on Jan. 8, 1642. In 1979, Pope John Paul II declared that the Roman Catholic Church may have been mistaken in condemning Galileo. He instructed a church commission to study Galileo’s case. In 1983, the commission concluded that Galileo should not have been condemned. In 1984, at the commission’s recommendation, the church published all documents related to Galileo’s trial. In 1992, Pope John Paul II publicly endorsed the commission’s finding that the church had made a mistake in condemning Galileo.

Galileo’s Scientific Contribution
Historians disagree about Galileo’s role as the “founder of modern experimental science.” In fact, some of them doubt that experiment, in the modern sense, played an important part at all in Galileo’s scientific development. These historians maintain that Galileo’s real originality lay in the way he approached scientific problems. First, Galileo reduced those problems to very simple terms on the basis of everyday experience and common-sense logic. Then he analyzed and resolved the problems according to simple mathematical descriptions. The success with which Galileo applied this technique to the analysis of physics, especially the physics of motion, opened the way for the development of modern mathematical physics.

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Bill Gates (1955-…)

Bill Gates  is a cofounder and the chairman and chief software architect of Microsoft Corporation. From 1975 until 2000, he also served as Microsoft’s chief executive officer. Microsoft is the world’s largest developer and publisher of software programs for personal computers. William Henry Gates was born in Seattle. He set up his first software company at age 15 with a schoolmate named Paul Allen. In 1975, he and Allen began to design programs for personal computers, which had just entered the marketplace. The two founded Microsoft that year. In 1980, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) chose Microsoft to develop the operating system for its first personal computer, the PC. An operating system is a special type of program that contains instructions for the operation of the computer. Gates devised the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) for IBM. Millions of copies of MS-DOS were sold for use in IBM and IBM-compatible PC’s. Microsoft continued to grow under Gates’s guidance. In 1985, the company introduced the first of a series of PC programs called Windows. These programs enable users to perform multiple tasks through “windows” on the computer screen and to issue commands by pointing at onscreen symbols rather than by typing instructions. Microsoft has sold millions of copies of Windows.

Microsoft Corporation is the world’s largest developer and publisher of software programs for personal computers. In addition, Microsoft operates online services and a cable-television news channel. The company also produces software for the operation of electronic devices other than computers.

Microsoft began in 1975 as an informal business partnership between former schoolmates Bill Gates and Paul Allen. The two men adapted the programming language BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) for use with the earliest home computer, the MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems) Altair 8800. They were soon writing programs for other manufacturers’ computers. In 1980, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) chose Microsoft to develop the operating system for its first personal computer, the PC. An operating system is software that contains instructions for all of a computer’s functions. Millions of copies of the Microsoft Disk Operating System (MS-DOS) were sold for use in IBM computers and IBM-compatible PC’s.

In 1985, Microsoft introduced the first of a series of operating systems called Windows. These programs employ a graphical user interface (GUI), which allows people to issue commands by pointing to on-screen symbols and clicking a mouse rather than by typing instructions. The program also enables people to perform multiple tasks, each in a different “window” on the computer screen. Microsoft has sold millions of copies of Windows. The company also produces other software products for business and consumer use. These products include Excel, a spreadsheet program; FoxPro, a database-management program; and Word, a word-processing program.

In 1998, the United States Department of Justice, along with 20 state attorneys general and the corporation counsel for the District of Columbia, filed an antitrust suit against Microsoft. Later that year, one of the states, South Carolina, withdrew from the suit. The lawsuit charged that the company used unfair practices to destroy its competitors. Following a 1999 trial, a federal district court judge, Thomas Penfield Jackson, found that the Microsoft Corporation is a monopoly that has harmed competitors and consumers. He appointed a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals to help the company and the government negotiate a settlement. In April 2000, settlement talks broke down, and Jackson found Microsoft guilty of violating U.S. antitrust laws. In June 2000, Jackson ordered the corporation to be split into two different companies–one that would produce only operating systems and another that would produce and manage other products and services. Microsoft officials appealed the order.

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The Life and Deeds of Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

His formal schooling amounted less than a year so he educated himself by reading books. It was a rough beginning for the sixteen president of USA. Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin Abe Lincoln was born in a log cabin in the Kentucky backwoodson February 12 1809 He taught himself law opened an office in Springfield Ilineo and married a society belt named Mary Tan. In 1858 the popular lawyer ran for senator from ılino As opponent Steven Douglas challenged him a series of debates on the issue of slavery Lincoln opposed the spread of slavery to new states being formed out west He lost the election but the debate made him famous. Two years later he ran for president this time Lincoln won.

Lincoln warned the South in his Inaugural Address: “In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you…. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to preserve, protect and defend it.”
Lincoln thought secession illegal, and was willing to use force to defend Federal law and the Union. When Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter and forced its surrender, he called on the states for 75,000 volunteers. Four more slave states joined the Confederacy but four remained within the Union. The Civil War had begun.

The son of a Kentucky frontiersman, Lincoln had to struggle for a living and for learning. Five months before receiving his party’s nomination for President, he sketched his life:

“I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families–second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks…. My father … removed from Kentucky to … Indiana, in my eighth year…. It was a wild region, with many bears and other wild animals still in the woods. There I grew up…. Of course when I came of age I did not know much. Still somehow, I could read, write, and cipher … but that was all.”

Lincoln made extraordinary efforts to attain knowledge while working on a farm, splitting rails for fences, and keeping store at New Salem, Illinois. He was a captain in the Black Hawk War, spent eight years in the Illinois legislature, and rode the circuit of courts for many years. His law partner said of him, “His ambition was a little engine that knew no rest.”

He married Mary Todd, and they had four boys, only one of whom lived to maturity. In 1858 Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for Senator. He lost the election, but in debating with Douglas he gained a national reputation that won him the Republican nomination for President in 1860.

As President, he built the Republican Party into a strong national organization. Further, he rallied most of the northern Democrats to the Union cause. On January 1, 1863, he issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared forever free those slaves within the Confederacy.

Lincoln never let the world forget that the Civil War involved an even larger issue. This he stated most movingly in dedicating the military cemetery at Gettysburg: “that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain–that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Lincoln won re-election in 1864, as Union military triumphs heralded an end to the war. In his planning for peace, the President was flexible and generous, encouraging Southerners to lay down their arms and join speedily in reunion.
The spirit that guided him was clearly that of his Second Inaugural Address, now inscribed on one wall of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D. C.: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds…. ”

On Good Friday, April 14, 1865, Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington by John Wilkes Booth, an actor, who somehow thought he was helping the South. The opposite was the result, for with Lincoln’s death, the possibility of peace with magnanimity died.

Related Video: Abraham Lincoln Biography

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Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt,  (1963- ), American motion-picture actor, who became a celebrity and male sex symbol in the 1990s. Though popular for his blue eyes and strong physical features, Pitt has avoided being typecast for his looks and is known for the variety of his roles.

Born in Shawnee, Oklahoma, William Bradley Pitt grew up in Springfield, Missouri, and attended the University of Missouri. In 1986, two credits shy of graduating with an advertising degree, Pitt dropped out of college and moved to California to pursue an acting career. It took him almost five years to get his big break, a role as a thieving hitchhiker in the film Thelma and Louise (1991), directed by Ridley Scott. The following year Pitt starred in A River Runs Through It, a movie directed by Robert Redford in which Pitt played a rebellious brother in a family of fly-fishermen. Critics praised his performance and compared his rough-but-handsome physical appearance and charismatic style to legendary actor James Dean.

Pitt’s success in the early 1990s made him a star, but he sought to extend himself as an actor with untraditional roles. In 1994 he played a 200-year-old vampire in Interview with the Vampire. The following year Pitt portrayed an obsessive mental patient in the time-travel drama Twelve Monkeys, an inspired performance that earned him a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomination as best supporting actor. In 1998 he starred in Meet Joe Black as the title character, who is the physical embodiment of Death.

Pitt has also played a variety of mainstream roles, including a homicide detective in Se7en (1995) and a mobster in The Mexican (2001). Nevertheless, Pitt often portrays strange or unstable characters. In 1999 he starred in Fight Club as the mysterious leader of a secret society of men rediscovering their masculinity through violence. Though the film failed commercially, Pitt’s portrayal of a complex character drew accolades. In 2000 he appeared in Snatch as a barely intelligible vagabond who becomes a prizefighter.

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Muhammad Ali

INTRODUCTION

Muhammad Ali, born in 1942, American boxer, one of the greatest fighters in the history of the sport. Colorful, talented, and sometimes controversial, Ali entertained fans and intimidated opponents. His boxing style involved graceful footwork and powerful jabs. He also became famous for bragging about himself, often in his own verse. Ali once described his skills by saying that he could “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” In 1978 he became the first boxer to win the world heavyweight championship title three different times.

“THE GREATEST”
Ali was born in Louisville, Kentucky. His birth name was Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., named after famed Kentucky abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay. Clay began boxing at the age of 12, after his bicycle was stolen and a police officer suggested that he learn how to box. By age 18 Clay had amassed an amateur record of 100 wins in 108 fights. This included six Kentucky Golden Gloves titles, the 1959 International Golden Gloves heavyweight title, and a gold medal as the light heavyweight champion at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, Italy.

After returning from the Olympics, Clay turned professional. He fought his first professional bout on October 29, 1960, and defeated Tunney Hunsaker. As Clay continued to win over the next few years, he became more vocal about his successes, and he was given the nicknames Louisville Lip and Mighty Mouth.

By 1964 Clay had recorded 19 professional wins and had earned a chance to challenge heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. At 22 years old, Clay was considered a serious underdog. Nonetheless, he predicted that he would knock Liston out in the eighth round. Clay needed even less time to make good on his claim. His jab-and-dance technique tired Liston, who failed to come out of his corner at the start of the seventh round. Clay was crowned the new world heavyweight champion and proclaimed himself The Greatest.

In 1964 Clay converted to Islam, joined the Nation of Islam (see Black Muslims), and assumed the name Muhammad Ali. In 1965 he defended his title in a rematch against Liston, a bout that lasted only 2 minutes 12 seconds. During the first round Ali caught Liston with a hard blow, so quick that it was dubbed the “phantom punch” because few fans saw it. Liston fell, and although he regained his feet before the count was finished, the referee ended the fight in Ali’s favor. Six months later Ali successfully defended his title against former champion Floyd Patterson. Ali retained his title with victories in five more bouts before 1967.

THE CONTROVERSIAL CHAMPION
In 1967, in the middle of the Vietnam War, Ali refused to be inducted into the United States Army on the grounds that he was a black Muslim minister and therefore a conscientious objector. He had thrust himself into the middle of a period of volatility in American society. Ali was an outspoken African American at a time when the country’s commitment to civil rights was being widely questioned. He was also one of the most prominent conscientious objectors against the war, which was attracting more and more protest. Ali was convicted of draft evasion, and his popularity plummeted. Early in 1967 he was stripped of his heavyweight title and the title was declared vacant. When he was subsequently banned from fighting in the United States, Ali filed a number of court appeals.

Ali was allowed to return to the ring in late 1970, but in his absence Joe Frazier had taken the world heavyweight title. After three years without a championship fight, and with only two warm-up matches as preparation, Ali entered the ring in March 1971 for his highly promoted bout with Frazier. Because both Ali and Frazier carried undefeated records, the bout was billed as “The Fight of the Century.” Ali lost the 15-round battle, and Frazier retained his title. Later that year the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Ali’s draft evasion conviction.

CHAMPION AGAIN

Ali faced Frazier again in January 1974 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Frazier had lost the heavyweight title to George Foreman in 1973, and therefore both boxers were mounting major comebacks. After the former champions battled for 12 rounds, Ali won by unanimous decision and gained the right to challenge Foreman for the heavyweight title.

Ali and Foreman agreed to a bout to be held in Kinshasa, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC). The match was dubbed by many “The Rumble in the Jungle,” and it attracted worldwide attention. It was originally scheduled for early September 1974, but after Foreman suffered a serious cut above his right eye during training the fight was delayed until late October. Ali used the extra time to train in Kinshasa. He savored the media limelight, made friends with locals, and challenged and taunted Foreman at press conferences and meetings. Despite Ali’s confidence, many believed that he was past his prime and would fall to the younger opponent.

When the fight began, observers were surprised by Ali’s strategy. In the weeks leading up to the bout, he had loudly predicted that he would beat Foreman with graceful footwork, taking advantage of his quickness to dance around Foreman. But his performance in the ring was much different. Ali hugged the ropes and opened himself up to a barrage of Foreman punches during the early rounds. Foreman became weary as the fight progressed, however, and Ali fought back with well-placed, powerful punches. This successful technique was later dubbed “rope-a-dope.” A knockout in the eighth round secured Ali’s victory and gained him his second world heavyweight title. The fight and the weeks leading up to it were captured in the film When We Were Kings, which was released in 1996 and won an Academy Award for best documentary.

After defending his title against three different challengers early in 1975, Ali agreed to fight Frazier in Manila, Philippines, in October of that same year. Once again, Ali predicted victory. Before 28,000 boxing fans and 700 million television viewers, Ali outlasted Frazier and defended his title in a brutal 15-round battle Ali called “The Thrilla in Manila.” The fight cemented Ali and Frazier’s places as two of the most durable, enduring boxers in the sport’s history.

Related Video: The Greatest

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Prince Charles Prince of Wales (1948–)

Son of Elizabeth II (1926–) and heir to the throne of England. He was born on November 14, 1948, the firstborn child of Princess Elizabeth, daughter and heir to King George VI and her husband Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. He attended private boarding school at Hill House, Cheam School, Gordonstoun in Scotland, and Timbertop in Australia. Charles became a Counselor of State at age eighteen and was invested as a Knight of the Gaiter in June of 1968. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, and graduating with a lower second class degree in 1970, became the first heir to the throne to secure a university degree.

In March of 1971, Charles did four-months of service with the Royal Air Force at Cranwell to qualify as a jet pilot. In 1974, he joined the Fleet Air Arm, took a helicopter conversion course, and was assigned to the 845 Naval Air Squadron as a pilot on board the commando carrier HMS Hermes. In 1976, Charles was given command of the coastal mine hunter HMS Bronington. After finishing his five-year term of service in the navy, Charles often expressed his frustration over the limitations of royal responsibilities. Charles’s desire to do more led him to found the Prince’s Trust in 1976. This organization provided individual grants to help young people escape from poverty and crime by setting up self-help programs. It became a multi-million pound organization and the biggest independent charity of its kind in the country. Charles also served as the president of the International Council of the United World Colleges. In February of 1981, the prince, who was thirty-two, announced his engagement to Lady Diana Spencer, who was nineteen at the time. The wedding, which received extraordinary media coverage, took place on July 29, 1981. The nation rejoiced in a mood of universal celebration as the beautiful, shy bride married what seemed to be her “Prince Charming.”

Charles and Diana celebrated the birth of their first son, Prince William, on June 21, 1982. Another son, Prince Henry (“Harry”), followed in September of 1984. As Charles and Diana made official tours around the world, her popularity grew. The media interest in her soared and the press focused less on Charles, although he continued his work with community organizations such as the Prince’s Trust. In 1986, the Prince’s Youth Business Trust was founded to disperse modest loans and grants to beginning entrepreneurs who were refused by banks. By 2000, the organization had helped over 40,000 people start new businesses. Charles also became president of Business In The Community (BITC) that tried to break through barriers of class and race that separated industrial executives from leaders of the black community.

By 1986, Charles’s marriage had disintegrated. The following year speculation over the marriage became a preoccupation of the British and international media, and rumors abounded about Charles and Diana’s behavior and alleged affairs. On December 9, 1992, Prime Minister John Major announced in the House of Commons that the royal couple was separating, but that they would not divorce. However, strained relations between the two continued and in December of 1995 the Queen wrote to Charles and Diana suggesting they resolve their differences amicably for the sake of the children. In February 1996, the two met privately to discuss the details of the divorce settlement. The royal divorce became final on August 28, 1996.

The scandal and humiliation the royal family began to endure in 1987 continued as accusations flew and “tell-all” books were published by former employees and supposed friends. Charles’s popularity plummeted as opinion polls published in 1996 showed that 77 percent of the British people believed he lacked the public respect to be an efficient king. However, both Charles and Diana appeared to be moving on with their respective lives. Then tragedy struck on August 31, 1997, when Diana was killed in an automobile accident in Paris. Following her death, Charles has continued to raise his sons and work. He also has become more responsive to the media and increased his public appearances. A 1999 survey indicated that 63 percent of the British people believed he would be an effective king.

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