Babbage

Mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer and English Polymath Charles Babbage, FRS sadly died on 18 October 1871, at the age of 79. He was born 26 December 1791. Babbage attended country school inAlphington near Exeter, then attended King Edward VI Grammar School in Totnes, South Devon, but his health forced him back to private tutors for a time Babbage then joined Holmwood academy, in Baker Street, Enfield,Middlesex, The academy’s library kindled Babbage’s love of mathematics. He studied with two more private tutors after leaving the academy. He was brought home, to study at the Totnes school: Babbage was accepted by Cambridge University and arrived at Trinity College, Cambridge, in October 1810, where he formed the Analytical society in 1812 with John Herschel and George Peacock ; Babbage was also a member of The Ghost Club, which investigated supernatural phenomena, and the Extractors Club, dedicated to liberating its members from the madhouse, should any be committed to one .In 1812 Babbage transferred to Peterhouse, Cambridge. He was the top mathematician there, but did not graduate with honours, receiving a degree without examination instead in 1814 after having defended a thesis that was considered blasphemous in the preliminary public disputation;

In 1815 Babbage lectured at the Royal Institution on astronomy and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1816. After graduation, Babbage and Herschel visited the Society of Arcueil in Paris, meeting leading French mathematicians and physicists and also worked on a basic explanation of the Electrodynamics of Arago’s rotation with Herschel, and Michael Farraday. These are now part of the theory of eddy currents. He also worked on the unification of electromagnetics. Babbage was also interested in the Coarative View of the Various institutions for the Assurance of Lives and calculated Acturial tables for an insurance Company using Equitable Society Mortality Data from 1762. Babbage helped found the Astronomical Society in 1820, whose aims were to reduce astronomical calculations to a more standard form, and publish the data. In 1824 Babbage won the Astronomical Society’s Gold Medal, “for his invention of an engine for calculating mathematical and astronomical tables” to overcome errors made in tables by mechanisation and to improve the Nautical Almanac after decrepencies were found in traditional calculations. Babbage also helped establish a modern postal system, with his friend Thomas Frederick Colby, And introduced the Uniform Fourpenny Post supplanted by the Uniform Penny Post. In 1816 Babbage, Herschel and Peacock published a translation from French of the lectures of Sylvestre Lacroix concerning Calculus, the Formal Power Series which affected functional equations (including the difference equations fundamental to the difference engine) and operator (D-module) methods for differential equations. He also originated the concept of a programmable computer” and invented the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex designs.

The analogy of difference and differential equations was notationally changing Δ to D, as a “finite” difference becomes “infinitesimal”. These symbolic directions became popular, as operational calculus, and pushed to the point of diminishing returns. Woodhouse had already founded this second “British Lagrangian School” Babbage worked intensively on functional equations in general, influenced by Arbogast’s ideas. From 1828 to 1839 Babbage was Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. Not a conventional resident don, and inattentive to teaching, he wrote three topical books during this period of his life. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1832. Babbage planned to lecture in 1831 on political economy. Babbage’s reforming direction Aiming to make university education more inclusive, with universities doing more for research, a broader syllabus and more interest in applications, but the idea was rejected. Another controversy Babbage had with Richard Jones lasted for six years and he never gave another lecture. Babbage also tried to enter politics, his views included disestablishment of the Church of England, a broader political franchise, and inclusion of manufacturers as stakeholders. He twice stood for Parliament as a candidate for the borough of Finsbury. In 1832 he came in third among five candidates, missing out by some 500 votes in the two-member constituency when two other reformist candidates, Thomas Wakley and Christopher Temple, split the vote. Babbage wrote another book Reflections on the Decline of Science and some of its Causes (1830) attacking the establishment and aiming to improve British science, by ousting Davies Gilbert as President of the Royal Society. Babbage also wished to become the junior secretary of the Royal Society, as Herschel was the senior, but failed after antagonizing Humphry Davy. subsequently the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) was formed in 1831.

Babbage used symbols to express the actions of his Difference and Analytical Engines in his influential book Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, which dealt with the organisation of industrial production. And An essay on the general principles which regulate the application of machinery to manufactures and the mechanical arts, was featured in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana. In his book Babbage developed the schematic classification of machines, whether for Domestic or industrial use andThe book also contained ideas on rational design in factories, and profit sharing and described The Babbage Principal. This discussed the commercial advantages available with more careful division of labour This principal had already been mentioned in the work of Melchiorre Gioia in 1815.The term was introduced in 1974 by Harry Braverman. Related formulations are the “principle of multiples” of Philip Sargant Florence, and the “balance of processes”. Babbage noticed that skilled workers typically spend parts of their time performing tasks that are below their skill level. If the labour process can be divided among several workers, labour costs may be cut by assigning only high-skill tasks to high-cost workers, restricting other tasks to lower-paid workers And that apprenticeship can be taken as fixed cost but returns to scale are available favoring the factory system. He also published a detailed breakdown of the cost structure of book publishing exposing the trade’s profitability,much to the chagrin of many publishers and namedthe organisers of the trade’s restrictive practices.

Babbage’s theories also influenced the 1851 Great Exhibition his views having a strong effect on many. Karl Marx argued that the source of the productivity of the factory system was the combination of the division of labour with machinery but mentioned that the motivation for division of labour was often for the sake of profitability, rather than productivity. Babbage also influenced the economic thinking of John Stuart Mill, George Holyoake, the economist Claude Lucien Bergery, William Jevons and Charles Fourier among others

In 1837, Babbage published On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God. A work of natural theology in which Babbage favored uniformitarianism preferring the conception of creation in which natural law dominated, removing the need for “contrivance. It incorporated extracts from related correspondence of Herschel withCharles Lyell. Babbage put forward the thesis that God had the omnipotence and foresight to create as a divine legislator. He could make laws which then produced species at the appropriate times, rather than continually interfering with ad hoc miracles each time a new species was required. The British Association as inspired by the Deutsche Naturforscher-Versammlung, founded in 1822. It rejected romantic science as well as metaphysics, and started to entrench the divisions of science from literature, and professionals from amateurs. Babbage also identified closely with industrialists And Suggested that industrial society was the culmination of human development. In 1838 a clash with Roderick Murchison led to his withdrawal from further involvement and he also resigned as Lucasian professor,

His interests became more focussed, on computation and metrology, and on international contacts And announced A project to tabulate all physical constants (referred to as “constants of nature”, a phrase in itself a neologism), and then to compile an encyclopedic work of numerical information. He was a pioneer in the field of “absolute measurement”.] His ideas followed on from those of Johann Christian Poggendorff, and were mentioned to Brewster in 1832. There were to be 19 categories of constants, and Ian Hacking sees these as reflecting in part Babbage’s “eccentric enthusiasms” Babbage’s paper On Tables of the Constants of Nature and Art was reprinted by the Smithsonian Institution in 1856, with an added note that the physical tables of Arnold Henry Guyot “will form a part of the important work proposed in this article”.Exact measurement was also key to the development of machine tools. Here again Babbage is considered a pioneer, with Henry Maudslay, William Sellers, and Joseph Whitworth

Babbage also met the the Engineers Marc Brunel and Joseph Clement at the Royal Society And introduced them to Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1830, for a contact with the proposed Bristol & Birmingham Railway. He also carried out studies, around 1838, showing the superiority of the broad gauge for railways, used by Brunel’s Great Western Railway ln 1838, And invented the pilot (also called a cow-catcher), the metal frame attached to the front of locomotives that clears the tracks of obstacles; he also constructed a dynamometer car. His eldest son, Benjamin Herschel Babbage, also worked as an engineer for Brunel on the railways before emigrating to Australia in the 1850s. Babbage also invented an ophthalmoscope, however the optician Thomas Wharton Jones, ignored it and It Was only widely used after being independently invented by Hermann von Helmholtz.

Babbage also decoded Vigenère’s autokey cipher during the Crimean War His discovery being kept a military secret And later wrote a letter anonymously to the Journal of the Society for Arts concerning “Cypher Writing” . Babbage lived and worked for over 40 years at 1 Dorset Street, Marylebone, until he died; he was buried in London’s Kensal Green Cemetery. According to Horsley, Babbage died “of renal inadequacy, secondary to cystitis.” He had declined both a knighthood and baronetcy. He also argued against hereditary peerages, favoring life peerages instead. In 1983 the autopsy report for Charles Babbage was discovered and later published by his great-great-grandson A copy of the original is also available. Half of Babbage’s brain is preserved at the Hunterian Museum in the Royal College of Surgeons in London The other half of Babbage’s brain is on display in the Science Museum, London.

World Maths Day Z(%)+(§)=X➗(%§)

World Maths day takes place annually on 15 October. The First World Maths Day took place 15 October 2007 on the date of an online international mathematics competition, by educational resource provider 3P Learning.

Maths (Mathematics) is derived from the Greek word from Greek μάθημα máthēma, “knowledge, study, learning”). It includes the study of such topics as quantity (number theory), structure (algebra), space (geometry), and change (mathematical analysis). It has no generally accepted definition. Mathematicians seek and use patterns to formulate new conjectures; they resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proof. When mathematical structures are good models of real phenomena, then mathematical reasoning can provide insight or predictions about nature. Through the use of abstraction and logic, mathematics developed from counting, calculation, measurement, and the systematic study of the shapes and motions of physical objects. Practical mathematics has been a human activity from as far back as written records exist. The research required to solve mathematical problems can take years or even centuries of sustained inquiry.
Rigorous arguments first appeared in Greek mathematics, most notably in Euclid’s Elements. Since the pioneering work of Giuseppe Peano (1858–1932), David Hilbert (1862–1943), and others on axiomatic systems in the late 19th century, it has become customary to view mathematical research as establishing truth by rigorous deduction from appropriately chosen axioms and definitions. Mathematics developed at a relatively slow pace until the Renaissance, when mathematical innovations interacting with new scientific discoveries led to a rapid increase in the rate of mathematical discovery that has continued to the present day. Mathematics is essential in many fields, including natural science, engineering, medicine, finance, and the social sciences. Applied mathematics has led to entirely new mathematical disciplines, such as statistics and game theory. Mathematicians engage in pure mathematics (mathematics for its own sake) without having any application in mind, but practical applications for what began as pure mathematics are often discovered later.

The history of mathematics may have begun with the concept of quantities and the need to identify quantities. Therefore numbers were invented as a method to identify and count quantity. by tallies found on bone, in addition to recognizing how to count physical objects, prehistoric peoples may have also recognized how to count abstract quantities, like time – days, seasons, years. Evidence for more complex mathematics appears around 3000 BC, when the Babylonians and Egyptians began using arithmetic, algebra and geometry for taxation and other financial calculations, for building and construction, and for astronomy. The most ancient mathematical texts from Mesopotamia and Egypt are from 2000–1800 BC. Many early texts mention Pythagorean triples and so, by inference, the Pythagorean theorem seems to be the most ancient and widespread mathematical development after basic arithmetic and geometry. It is in Babylonian mathematics that elementary arithmetic (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) first appear in the archaeological record. The Babylonians also possessed a place-value system, and used a sexagesimal numeral system, still in use today for measuring angles and time. During the 6th century BC the Ancient Greeks began a systematic study of mathematics as a subject in its own right with Greek mathematics. Around 300 BC, Euclid introduced the axiomatic method still used in mathematics today, consisting of definition, axiom, theorem, and proof. His textbook Elements is widely considered the most successful and influential textbook of all time. The greatest mathematician of antiquity is often held to be Archimedes (c. 287–212 BC) of Syracuse. He developed formulas for calculating the surface area and volume of solids of revolution and used the method of exhaustion to calculate the area under the arc of a parabola with the summation of an infinite series, in a manner not too dissimilar from modern calculus. Other notable achievements of Greek mathematics are conic sections (Apollonius of Perga, 3rd century BC), trigonometry (Hipparchus of Nicaea (2nd century BC), and the beginnings of algebra (Diophantus, 3rd century AD). The Hindu–Arabic numeral system and the rules for the use of its operations, in use throughout the world today, evolved over the course of the first millennium AD in India and were transmitted to the Western world via Islamic mathematics. Other notable developments of Indian mathematics include the modern definition of sine and cosine, and an early form of infinite series.

Michael Faraday FRS

English Scientist Michael Faraday FRS was born 22 September 1791 in Newington Butts. The young Michael Faraday, received little formal education and had to educate himself.At fourteen he became the apprentice to George Riebau, a local bookbinder and bookseller in Blandford Street.During his seven-year apprenticeship he read many books, including Isaac Watts’ The Improvement of the Mind, and he enthusiastically implemented the principles and suggestions contained therein. At this time he also developed an interest in science, especially in electricity. Faraday was particularly inspired by the book Conversations on Chemistry by Jane Marcet.

In 1812, after his apprenticeship, Faraday attended lectures by the eminent English chemist Humphry Davy of the Royal Institution and Royal Society, and John Tatum, founder of the City Philosophical Society. Faraday subsequently sent Davy a three-hundred-page book based on notes that he had taken during these lectures. Davy’s reply was immediate, kind, and favourable. In 1813, Davy employed Faraday  as Chemical Assistant at the Royal Institution on Very soon Davy entrusted Faraday with preparation of nitrogen trichloride samples, and they both became injured in an explosion of this very sensitive substance.

In the class-based English society of the time, Faraday was not considered a gentleman. When Davy set out on a long tour of the continent in 1813–15, his valet did not wish to go. Instead, Faraday went as Davy’s scientific assistant, and was asked to act as Davy’s valet until a replacement could be found in Paris. Faraday was forced to fill the role of valet as well as assistant throughout the trip, this made Faraday so miserable that he contemplated giving up science altogether, however, it also give him access to the scientific elite of Europe and exposed him to a host of stimulating ideas

Faraday married Sarah Barnard They met through their families at the Sandemanian church, and he confessed his faith to the Sandemanian congregation the month after they were married. They had no children. Faraday was a devout Christian; his Sandemanian denomination was an offshoot of the Church of Scotland. Well after his marriage, he served as deacon and for two terms as an elder in the meeting house of his youth. His church was located at Paul’s Alley in the Barbican. This meeting house was relocated in 1862 to Barnsbury Grove, Islington; this North London location was where Faraday served the final two years of his second term as elder prior to his resignation from that post. Biographers have noted that “a strong sense of the unity of God and nature pervaded Faraday’s life and work.”

In June 1832, the University of Oxford granted Faraday a Doctor of Civil Law degree (honorary). During his lifetime, he was offered a knighthood in recognition for his services to science. He twice refused to become President of the Royal Society. He was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1838, and was one of eight foreign members elected to the French Academy of Sciences in 1844. In 1849 he was elected as associated member to the Royal Institute of the Netherlands, which two years later became the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and he was subsequently made foreign member. Faraday suffered a nervous breakdown in 1839 but eventually returned to his electromagnetic investigations. In 1848, as a result of representations by the Prince Consort, Faraday was awarded a grace and favour house in Hampton Court. When asked by the British government to advise on the production of chemical weapons for use in the Crimean War (1853–1856), Faraday refused to participate citing ethical reasons. Faraday died at his house at Hampton Court on 25 August 1867, aged 75. He had previously turned down burial in Westminster Abbey, but he has a memorial plaque there, near Isaac Newton’s tomb. Faraday was interred in the dissenters’ (non-Anglican) section of Highgate Cemetery.

Faraday was one of the most influential scientists in history. He contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry. His main discoveries include those of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis.It was by his research on the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a direct current that Faraday established the basis for the concept of the electromagnetic field in physics. Faraday also established that magnetism could affect rays of light and that there was an underlying relationship between the two phenomena. He similarly discovered the principle of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism, and the laws of electrolysis. His inventions of electromagnetic rotary devices formed the foundation of electric motor technology, and it was largely due to his efforts that electricity became practical for use in technology.

As a chemist, Faraday discovered benzene, investigated the clathrate hydrate of chlorine, invented an early form of the Bunsen burner and the system of oxidation numbers, and popularised terminology such as anode, cathode, electrode, and ion. Faraday ultimately became the first and foremost Fullerian Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, a lifetime position. Albert Einstein kept a picture of Faraday on his study wall, alongside pictures of Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell. Physicist Ernest Rutherford stated; “When we consider the magnitude and extent of his discoveries and their influence on the progress of science and of industry, there is no honour too great to pay to the memory of Faraday, one of the greatest scientific discoverers of all time”.

International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer

International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer takes place annually on 16 September. It was designated by The United Nations General Assembly. The ozone layer or ozone shield is a region of Earth’s stratosphere that absorbs most of the Sun’s ultraviolet radiation. It contains high concentration of ozone (O3) in relation to other parts of the atmosphere, although still small in relation to other gases in the stratosphere. The ozone layer contains less than 10 parts per million of ozone, while the average ozone concentration in Earth’s atmosphere as a whole is about 0.3 parts per million. The ozone layer is mainly found in the lower portion of the stratosphere, from approximately 15 to 35 kilometers (9.3 to 21.7 mi) above Earth, although its thickness varies seasonally and geographically.

The ozone layer was discovered in 1913 by the French physicists Charles Fabry and Henri Buisson. Measurements of the sun showed that the radiation sent out from its surface and reaching the ground on Earth is usually consistent with the spectrum of a black body with a temperature in the range of 5,500–6,000 K (5,227 to 5,727 °C), except that there was no radiation below a wavelength of about 310 nm at the ultraviolet end of the spectrum. It was deduced that the missing radiation was being absorbed by something in the atmosphere. Eventually the spectrum of the missing radiation was matched to only one known chemical, ozone. Its properties were explored in detail by the British meteorologist G. M. B. Dobson, who developed a simple spectrophotometer (the Dobsonmeter) that could be used to measure stratospheric ozone from the ground. Between 1928 and 1958, Dobson established a worldwide network of ozone monitoring stations, which continue to operate to this day. The “Dobson unit”, a convenient measure of the amount of ozone overhead, is named in his honor. The ozone layer absorbs 97 to 99 percent of the Sun’s medium-frequency ultraviolet light (from about 200 nm to 315 nm wavelength), which otherwise would potentially damage exposed life forms near the surface.

In 1976, atmospheric research revealed that the ozone layer was being depleted by chemicals released by industry, mainly chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Concerns that increased UV radiation due to ozone depletion threatened life on Earth, Including increased skin cancer in humans and many other ecological problems, led to bans on the chemicals, and the latest evidence is that ozone depletion has slowed or stopped. Venus also has a thin ozone layer at an altitude of 100 kilometers from the planet’s surface.

Pierre de fermat

French lawyer and Mathmatician Pierre de Fermat was Born 17 August 1601 in Beaumont-de-Lomagne, France. His father, Dominique Fermat, was a wealthy leather merchant, and served three one-year terms as one of the four consuls of Beaumont-de-Lomagne. His mother was Claire de Long. Pierre had one brother and two sisters and was almost certainly brought up in the town of his birth. He first studied at the Collège de Navarre in Montauban, then attended the University of Orléans from 1623 and received a bachelor in civil law in 1626, before moving to Bordeaux. In Bordeaux he began his first serious mathematical researches, and in 1629 he gave a copy of his restoration of Apollonius’s De Locis Planis to one of the mathematicians there. Certainly in Bordeaux he was in contact with Beaugrand and during this time he produced important work on maxima and minima which he gave to Étienne d’Espagnet who clearly shared mathematical interests with Fermat. There he became much influenced by the work of François Viète.

He Became a lawyer at the Parlement of Toulouse, France, and is credited with early developments that led to infinitesimal calculus, including his adequality. He is also recognized for the discovery of an original method of finding the greatest and the smallest ordinates of curved lines, which is analogous to that of the then unknown differential calculus, and his research into number theory. Fermat also made notable contributions to analytic geometry, probability, and optics, andis best known for Fermat’s Last Theorem, which he described in a note at the margin of a copy of Diophantus’ Arithmetica.

Fermat’s pioneering work in analytic geometry was circulated in manuscript form in 1636, predating the publication of Descartes’ famous La géométrie. This manuscript was published posthumously in 1679 in “Varia opera mathematica”, as Ad Locos Planos et Solidos Isagoge, (“Introduction to Plane and Solid Loci”).In his books “Methodus ad disquirendam maximam et minima” and”De tangentibus linearum curvarum”, Fermat developed a method for determining maxima, minima, and tangents to various curves that was equivalent to differentiation. In these works, Fermat obtained a technique for finding the centers of gravity of various plane and solid figures, which led to his further work in quadrature. Fermat was also the first person known to have evaluated the integral of general power functions. Using an ingenious trick, he was able to reduce this evaluation to the sum of geometric series. The resulting formula was helpful to Newton, and then Leibniz, when they independently developed the fundamental theorem of calculus

Fermat also studied Pell’s equation, perfect numbers, amicable numbers and what would later become Fermat numbers. It was while researching perfect numbers that he discovered the little theorem. He invented a factorization method – Fermat’s factorization method – as well as the proof technique of infinite descent, which he used to prove Fermat’s Last Theorem for the case n = 4. Fermat developed the two-square theorem, and the polygonal number theorem, which states that each number is a sum of three triangular numbers, four square numbers, five pentagonal numbers, and so on. Although Fermat claimed to have proved all his arithmetic theorems, few records of his proofs have survived. Many mathematicians, including Gauss, doubted several of his claims, especially given the difficulty of some of the problems and the limited mathematical tools available to Fermat. His famous Last Theorem was first discovered by his son in the margin on his father’s copy of an edition of Diophantus, and included the statement that the margin was too small to include the proof. He had not bothered to inform even Marin Mersenne of it. It was not proved until 1994, using techniques unavailable to Fermat

Although he carefully studied, and drew inspiration from Diophantus, Fermat began a different tradition. Diophantus was content to find a single solution to his equations, even if it were an undesired fractional one. Fermat was interested only in integer solutions to his Diophantine equations, and he looked for all possible general solutions. He often proved that certain equations had no solution, which usually baffled his contemporaries.Through his correspondence with Pascal in 1654, Fermat and Pascal helped lay the fundamental groundwork for the theory of probability. From this brief but productive collaboration on the problem of points, they are now regarded as joint founders of probability theory. Fermat is credited with carrying out the first ever rigorous probability calculation. In it, he was asked by a professional gambler why if he bet on rolling at least one six in four throws of a die he won in the long term, whereas betting on throwing at least one double-six in 24 throws of two dice resulted in him losing. Fermat subsequently proved why this was the case mathematically. Fermat’s principle of least time (which he used to derive Snell’s law in 1657) was the first variational principle enunciated in physics since Hero of Alexandria described a principle of least distance in the first century CE. Now, Fermat is recognized as a key figure in the historical development of the fundamental principle of least action in physics. The term Fermat functional was named in recognition of this role. Fermat’s Last Theorem states that no three positive integers a, b, and c can satisfy the equation:

An + Bn = Cn

If any integer value of n is greater than two. This theorem was first conjectured in 1637, famously in the margin of a copy of Arithmetica where he claimed he had a proof that was too large to fit in the margin.No successful proof was published until 1995 despite the efforts of countless mathematicians during the 358 intervening years. The unsolved problem stimulated the development of algebraic number theory in the 19th century and the proof of the modularity theorem in the 20th Century. It is among the most famous theorems in the history of mathematics and prior to its 1995 proof, it was in the Guinness Book of World Records for “most difficult maths problem”. Pierre de Fermat sadly passed away 12 January 1665.

Leon Thermin

Pioneering Russian inventor Léon Theremin was born Lev Sergeyevich Termen in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire in 15 August 1896 into a family of French and German ancestry.He had a sister named Helena. He became interested in electricity at the age of 7, and by 13 he was experimenting with high frequency circuits. In the seventh class of his high school before an audience of students and parents he demonstrated various optical effects using electricity. By the age of 17 he was in his last year of high school and at home he had his own laboratory for experimenting with high frequencircuits, optics and     magnetic fields. cousin, Kirill Fedorovich Nesturkh, then a young physicist, and a singer named Wagz invited him to attend the defense of the dissertation of professor Abram Fedorovich Ioffe. Physics lecturer Vladimir Konstantinovich Lebedinskiy had explained to Theremin the then interesting dispute over Ioffe’s work on the electron.

In 1913 Theremin and his cousin attended Ioffe’s dissertation defense. Ioffe’s subject was on the elementary photoelectric effect, the magnetic field of cathode rays and related investigations. In 1917 Theremin wrote that Ioffe talked of electrons, the photoelectric effect and magnetic fields as parts of an objective reality that surrounds us everyday, unlike others that talked more of somewhat abstract formula and symbols. Theremin wrote that he found this explanation revelatory and that it fit a scientific – not abstract – view of the world, different scales of magnitude, and matter. From then on Theremin endeavoured to study the Microcosm, in the same way he had studied the Macrocosm with his hand-built telescope. Later, Kyrill introduced Theremin to Ioffe as a young experimenter and physicist, and future student of the university. Theremin recalled that while still in his last year of school, he had built a million-volt Tesla coil and noticed a strong glow associated with his attempts to ionise the air. He then wished to further investigate the effects using university resources. A chance meeting with Abram Fedorovich Ioffe led to a recommendation to see Karl Karlovich Baumgart, who was in charge of the physics laboratory equipment. Karl then reserved a room and equipment for Theremin’s experiments. Abram Fedorovich suggested Theremin also look at methods of creating gas fluorescence under different conditions and of examining the resulting light’s spectra.

However, during these investigations Theremin was called up for World War I military service.Despite Theremin being only in his second academic year, the deanery of the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy recommended him to go to the Nikolayevska Military Engineering School in Petrograd (renamed from Saint Petersburg), which usually only accepted students in their fourth year. Theremin recalled Ioffe reassured him that the war would not last long and that military experience would be useful for scientific applications.Beginning his military service in 1916, Theremin finished the Military Engineering School in six months, progressed through the Graduate Electronic School for Officers, and attained the military radio-engineer diploma in the same year. In the course of the next three and a half years he oversaw the construction of a radio station in Saratov to connect the Volga area with Moscow, graduated from Petrograd University, became deputy leader of the new Military Radiotechnical Laboratory in Moscow, and finished as the broadcast supervisor of the radio transmitter at Tsarskoye Selo near Petrograd (then renamed Detskoye Selo).

During the Russian civil war, in October 1919 White Army commander Nikolai Nikolayevich Yudenich advanced on Petrograd from the side of Detskoye Selo, apparently intending to capture the radio station to announce a victory over the Bolsheviks. Theremin and others evacuated the station, sending equipment east on rail cars. Theremin then detonated explosives to destroy the 120 meter-high antennae mast before traveling to Petrograd to set up an international listening station. There he also trained radio specialists but reported difficulties obtaining food and working with foreign experts who he described as narrow-minded pessimists. Theremin recalled that on an evening when his hopes of overcoming these obstructing experts reached a low ebb, Abram Fedorovich Ioffe telephoned him. Ioffe asked Theremin to come to his newly founded Physical Technical Institute in Petrograd, and the next day he invited him to start work at developing measuring methods for high frequency electrical oscillations.

Following Ioffe’s invitation, Theremin started at the institute. He worked in diverse fields: applying the Laue effect to the new field of X-ray analysis of crystals; using hypnosis to improve measurement-reading accuracy; working with Ivan Pavlov’s laboratory; and using gas-filled lamps as measuring devices. He built a high frequency oscillator to measure the dielectric constant of gases with high precision; Ioffe then urged him to look for other applications using this method, and shortly made the first motion detector for use as a”radio watchman”.while adapting the dielectric device by adding circuitry to generate an audio tone, Theremin noticed the pitch changed when his hand moved around.

In 1920 he first demonstrated this to Ioffe who called in other professors and students to hear. Theremin recalled trying to find the notes for tunes he remembered from when he played the cello, such as the Swan by Saint-Saëns. By November 1920 Theremin had given his first public concert with the instrument, now modified with a horizontal volume antenna replacing the earlier foot-operated volume control. He named it the “etherphone” to be known as the Терменвокс (Termenvox) in the Soviet Union, as the Thereminvox in Germany,and later as the “theremin” in the United States. Theremin went to Germany in 1925 to sell both the radio watchman and Termenvox patents to the German firm Goldberg and Sons. According to Glinsky this was the Soviet’s “decoy for capitalists” to obtain both Western profits from sales and technical knowledge.During this time Theremin was also working on a wireless television with 16 scan lines in 1925, improving to 32 scan lines and then 64 using interlacing in 1926, and he demonstrated moving, if blurry, images on 7 June 1927.

Theramin embarked on a lengthy tour of Europe starting 1927 – including London, Paris and towns in Germany– to demonstrate his invention to full audiences. Before going to the United States To demonstrate the theremins capabilities with the New York Philharmonic in 1928. He patented his invention in the United States in 1928 and subsequently granted commercial production rights to RCA.Theremin also set up a laboratory in New York in the 1930s, where he developed the theremin and experimented with other electronic musical instruments and other inventions. These included the Rhythmicon, commissioned by the American composer and theorist Henry Cowell. In 1930, ten thereminists performed on stage at Carnegie Hall. Two years later, Theremin conducted the first-ever electronic orchestra, featuring the theremin and other electronic instruments including a “fingerboard” theremin which resembled a cello in use.

Theremin’s mentors during this time were some of society’s foremost scientists, composers, and musical theorists, including composerJoseph Schillinger and physicist (and amateur violinist) Albert Einstein. At this time, Theremin worked closely with fellow Russian émigré and theremin virtuoso Clara Rockmore.Theremin was interested in a role for the theremin in dance music. He developed performance locations that could automatically react to dancers’ movements with varied patterns of sound and light. Theremin abruptly returned to the Soviet Union in 1938. At the time, the reasons for his return were unclear; some claimed that he was simply homesick, while others believed that he had been kidnapped by Soviet officials. Beryl Campbell, one of Theremin’s dancers, said his wife Lavinia “called to say that he had been kidnapped from his studio” and that “some Russians had come in” and that she felt that he was going to be spirited out of the country. Many years later, it was revealed that Theremin had returned to his native land due to tax and financial difficulties in the United States. However, Theremin himself once told Bulat Galeyev that he decided to leave himself because he was anxious about the approaching war.

Shortly after he returned he was imprisoned in the Butyrka prison and later sent to work in the Kolyma gold mines. Although rumors of his execution were widely circulated and published, Theremin was, in fact, put to work in a sharashka (a secret laboratory in the Gulag camp system), together with Andrei Tupolev, Sergei Korolev, and other well-known scientists and engineers. The Soviet Union rehabilitated him in 1956. During his work at the sharashka, where he was put in charge of other workers, Theremin created the Buran eavesdropping system. A precursor to the modern laser microphone, it worked by using a low power infrared beam from a distance to detect the sound vibrations in the glass windows. Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the secret police organization NKVD(the predecessor of the KGB), used the Buran device to spy on the British, French and US embassies in Moscow.According to Galeyev, Beria also spied on Stalin; Theremin kept some of the tapes in his flat. In 1947, Theremin was awarded the Stalin prize for inventing this advance in Soviet espionage technology.

Theremin invented another listening device called The Thing. Disguised in a replica of theGreat Seal of the United States carved in wood, in 1945 Soviet school children presented the concealed bug to U.S. Ambassador as a “gesture of friendship” to the USSR’s World War II ally. It hung in the ambassador’s residential office in Moscow, and intercepted confidential conversations there during the first seven years of the Cold War, until it was accidentally discovered in 1952. After his “release” from the sharashka in 1947, Theremin volunteered to remain working with the KGB until 1966.By 1947 Theremin had remarried, to Maria Guschina, his third wife, and they had two children: Lena and Natalia.

After working for the KGB, Theremin worked at the Moscow Conservatory of Music for 10 years where he taught, and built theremins,electronic cellos and some terpsitones (another invention of Theremin) . Unfortunately an unfavorable article was written about Theramin  by Harold Schonberg, the chief music critic of The New York Times. This led tO the Conservatory’s Managing Director declaring that “electricity is not good for music; electricity is to be used for electrocution”.  Theramin’s instruments were removed from the conservatory, further electronic music projects were banned  and Theremin himself was summarily dismissed.

In the 1970s, Léon Theremin was a Professor of Physics at Moscow State University (Department of Acoustics) developing his inventions and supervising graduate students. After 51 years in the Soviet Union Theremin started travelling, first visiting France in June 1989 and then the United States in 1991, each time accompanied by his daughter Natalia. Theremin was brought to New York by filmmaker Steven M. Martin where he was reunited with Clara Rockmore. He also made a demonstration concert at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague in early 1993 before dying in Moscow, Russia in 1993.

Personal Computer Day

Personal Computer Day takes place annually on 12 August. It commemorates the introduction of the first Personal Computer, the IBM PC Model 5150, on 12 August 1981. This machime retailed at $1,565 USD, and had 16 kB of memory which seems paltry Compared with Most of today’s tablets which have at least 1 Gigabyte of RAM, and 16 GB of internal memory. (One Megabyte is 1,024 Kilobytes – One Gigabyte is 1024 Megabytes and 1 Terabyte is 1024 Megabytes.)

The personal computer (PC) was first developed as a multi-purpose machine whose size, capabilities, and price made it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or technician. Unlike large costly minicomputer and mainframes, time-sharing by many people at the same time. in the 1960s Institutional or corporate computer owners had to write their own programs to do any useful work with the machines. So during the 1960’s and 1970’s the personal computer was developed

While personal computer users may develop their own applications, usually these systems run commercial software, free-of-charge software (“freeware”) or free and open-source software, which is provided in ready-to-run form. Software for personal computers is typically developed and distributed independently from the hardware or operating system manufacturers. Many personal computer users no longer need to write their own programs to make any use of a personal computer, although end-user programming is still feasible. This contrasts with mobile systems, where software is often only available through a manufacturer-supported channel, and end-user program development may be discouraged by lack of support by the manufacturer.

The advent of personal computers and the concurrent Digital Revolution have significantly affected the lives of people in all countries and Since the early 1990s, Microsoft operating systems and Intel hardware have dominated much of the personal computer market, first with MS-DOS and then with Microsoft Windows. Alternatives to Microsoft’s Windows operating systems occupy a minority share of the industry. These include Apple’s macOS and free and open-source Unix-like operating systems.