Charles François du Fay Biography

Charles François du Fay

(Charles François de Cisternay du Fay; Paris, 1698-id., 1739) French physicist.He continued the investigations of Stephen Gray on the conduction of electricity and determined in 1733 the existence of two classes of electricity obtained by rubbing: resinous and vitreous, corresponding to what would later be called positive and negative electricity.He also distinguished between conductors and insulators and revealed the repulsion between electrically charged bodies of the same sign.He also conducted studies on crystalline optics.

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Gaspar Gil Polo Biography

Gaspar Gil Polo (Valencia, c .1530-Barcelona, 1584) Spanish writer.There is very little news of his life.Part of his fame as a poet is that Cervantes dedicated a royal octave to him in La Galatea (1583) and Juan de Timoneda quotes him in his Sarao de amor (1561).His fundamental work is the Diana in love (1564), continuation of the Diana by Jorge de Montemayor. Illustration of Diana in love , of Gaspar Gil Polo Born into a family of municipal officials in Valencia, Gaspar Gil Polo became a lawyer and held various administrative positions in the city.Felipe II appointed him commissioner in the principality of Catalonia, so in 1580 he moved to Barcelona.He must have been known as a poet among his contemporaries, since Juan de Timoneda quotes him in a romance of 1561, but at present only some of his loose poems are preserved. In 1564 he published in Valencia the five books of Diana in love , a pastoral novel that constitutes a continuation of Jorge de Montemayor's...

Joseph Boussinesq Biography

Joseph Boussinesq (Saint-André-de-Sangonis, 1842-Paris, 1929) French mathematician.He also studied physics and was a professor of different disciplines in Paris.A member of the Academy of Sciences, his work covered very diverse fields of physics, mathematics and philosophy.His statistical studies on hydrodynamics are especially interesting.His works include Infinitesimal Analysis Course and Analytical Theory of Heat.

Gerolamo Tiraboschi Biography

Gerolamo Tiraboschi (Gerolamo or Girolamo Tiraboschi; Bergamo, 1731-Modena, 1794) Italian scholar.At fifteen he entered the Society of Jesus, where he remained until its dissolution.He taught at the Milanese academy of Brera, and in 1770 he was appointed prefect of the Estense Library by Francisco III, Duke of Modena.The large number of sources at his disposal allowed him to compose works of considerable scholarship; the main one was the History of Italian Literature (1772-1781). Girolamo Tiraboschi He later became the official advisor of the new duke, Hercules III.He expanded the Estense Library and belonged to various academic entities.Tiraboschi also wrote a series of works on the arts, letters and the historical evolution of Modena.His minor texts include Vetera Humiliatorum monumenta (1766), Biblioteca modenese (1781-86), Memorie storiche modenesi (1793-1794) and Dizionario topografico-storico degli Stati Estensi (posthumous, 1824-25). Published from 1772 to 178...

Dukes of Medina Sidonia Biography

Dukes of Medina Sidonia (Or Medinasidonia) Castilian noble lineage that starts from Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, the Good (1256-1309).In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, his descendants extended their manorial domains through western Andalusia, around Sanlúcar de Barrameda and obtained the County of Niebla, as well as the position of major advance of the Andalusian border. It stands out among them Juan Alonso de Guzmán (1410-68), to whom Juan II granted the title of Duke of Medina Sidonia, who would henceforth carry his descendants: Enrique de Guzmán el Bueno y Meneses (?-1492) participated in the wars of the Catholic Monarchs against the Kingdom of Granada, standing out in the taking of Alhama and Malaga.He was succeeded by his son Juan Alonso de Guzmán el Bueno (?-1559), who participated in several expeditions against North Africa. His grandson Alonso Pérez de Guzmán (?-1619) was appointed by Felipe II to command the Invincible Armada, destined to invade England (1588); hi...

Jose Mauri Biography

José Mauri (Valencia, 1856-Havana, 1937) Spanish composer.Installed in Cuba for most of his life, he founded the conservatory that bears his name there (1914).His work includes numerous songs and the opera The Slave (1921).

Gregory IX Biography

Gregory IX (Ugolino de Segni; Anagni, c .1170-Rome, 1241) Pope of the Catholic Church (1227-1241).Nephew of Pope Innocent III, he studied in Paris and Bologna and in 1206 he was appointed Cardinal Bishop of Ostia by his uncle.A man of notable legal scholarship, he defended with great energy the claims of power of the papacy and the freedom of the church, for which reason he came into conflict with Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen. Pope Gregory IX approves the Decretals (fresco by Rafael Sanzio) Already in 1227 he excommunicated Frederick II for failing to fulfill his promise to undertake a new crusade, and in 1229 ordered the invasion of the kingdom of Sicily.In 1230 he made peace with the emperor, although the struggle between the Church and the emperor continued.In 1239 he again excommunicated Federico II and decreed a crusade against him; the imperial troops were about to enter Rome when he passed away. During his pontificate, Gregory IX founded the Inquisition and, with ...

Fortunato Lacamera Biography

Fortunato Lacamera (Buenos Aires, 1887- id ., 1951) Argentine painter.Belonging to the group of painters from the La Boca neighborhood, he also contributed to the founding of the group for the promotion of art Impulso, of which he was president.His works show the streets, interiors and motifs of the waterfront.

Johann Heinrich von Thünen Biography

Johann Heinrich von Thünen (Jever, Oldenburg, 1783-Tellow, Mecklenburg, 1850) German economist.With a solid mathematical background, Von Thünen dealt with agrarian economics, and his theories were a precedent for current industrial localization techniques.His main work is The isolationist state with respect to agriculture and the national economy (1826). Johann Heinrich von Thünen According to Von Thünen, in an ideal space (for example, an agricultural area of homogeneous fertility and surrounded by a desert area), agricultural holdings are located in such a way that transport costs are minimized, and therefore their Distribution is a function of the distance to the consumption centers.As demand increases due to the demographic increase of the city, if the supply of agricultural products is rigid, then prices will increase, and as a consequence of this, increasingly remote areas will be cultivated, configuring isolines of equal cost, which form concentric circles around the ...

Josef Willem Mengelberg Biography

Josef Willem Mengelberg (Utrecht, 1871-Zuort, 1951) Dutch conductor.He studied in his hometown with Richard Hol, Henri Wilhelm Petri and Anton Averkamp and later moved to Cologne (Germany), in whose conservatory he studied theory and counterpoint with G.Jensen, piano with I.Seiss and organ with F.W.Franke, in addition to directing and composing with Franz Wüllner. He was musical director of the Lucerne Conservatory in 1892 and years later, in 1895, he obtained the position of director of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra, a position he held until 1945.He also continued directing the Museum Concerts group in Frankfurt between 1907 and 1920.From 1899 he annually conducted the Amsterdam Toonkunst Choir in its interpretation of the Passion According to Saint Matthew by JS Bach. He also conducted the American National Symphony Orchestra in New York between 1920 and 1929 and was principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra from 1921 until he left it due to differen...

Joseph H. Maclagan Wedderburn Biography

Joseph H.Maclagan Wedderburn (Forfar, 1882-Princeton, 1948) British mathematician.Professor at Princeton University, he was editor of the Proceedings of the Edinburgh mathematical society (1905-1909) and the Annals of mathematics (1912-1928).He stated a theorem ( Wedderburn's theorem ) according to which every finite field is commutative.

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