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The Illuminati – about Conspiracies and Bestsellers

The Illuminati – about Conspiracies and Bestsellers

Harald Sack
On May 1st, 1776 Adam Weishaupt, the first lay professor of canon law, founded the secret order of Illuminati at the University of Ingolstadt.  It was made up of freethinkers as an offshoot of the Enlightenment and seems to have been modeled on the Freemasons. The Illuminati’s members took a vow of secrecy and pledged obedience to their superiors. Members were divided into three main classes, each with several degrees, and many Illuminati…
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computer science
Claude Shannon – the Father of Information Theory

Claude Shannon – the Father of Information Theory

Harald Sack
On April 30, 1916, American mathematician, electrical engineer, and cryptographer Claude Elwood Shannon was born, the “father of information theory“, whose groundbreaking work ushered in the Digital Revolution. Of course Shannon is famous for having founded information theory with one landmark paper published in 1948. But he is also credited with founding both digital computer and digital circuit design theory in 1937, when, as a 21-year-old master’s student at MIT, he wrote a thesis…
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engineering
Karl Drais and the Mechanical Horse

Karl Drais and the Mechanical Horse

Tabea Tietz
On April 29, 1785, German inventor Karl Drais was born, who invented the Laufmaschine (“running machine”), also later called the velocipede or draisine, also nicknamed the dandy horse. Becoming an Inventor Karl Drais’ father was the Baden court and government councillor Karl Wilhelm Ludwig Friedrich von Drais von Sauerbronn, his mother Margarete Ernestine von Kaltenthal. Margrave Carl Friedrich von Baden took over his sponsorship. In 1790 the von Drais family moved from Sauerbronn to…
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mathematics
Kurt Gödel Shaking the Very Foundations of Mathematics

Kurt Gödel Shaking the Very Foundations of Mathematics

Harald Sack
On April 28, 1906, Kurt Gödel was born. He was one of the most significant logicians of all time. Gödel made an immense impact upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century, a time when many, such as Bertrand Russell, A. N. Whitehead and David Hilbert were pioneering the use of logic and set theory to understand the foundations of mathematics. “Either mathematics is too big for the human mind, or the human mind…
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history
Edward Gibbon and the Science of History

Edward Gibbon and the Science of History

Harald Sack
On April 27, 1737, English historian and Member of Parliament Edward Gibbon was born. His most famous work, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, was published in six volumes between 1776 and 1788 and is known for the quality and irony of its prose as well as for its scientific historic accuracy, which made it a model for later historians. “History is little more than the register…
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literature
Brush Up Your Shakespeare

Brush Up Your Shakespeare

Harald Sack
On April 26, 1564, English poet and playwright William Shakespeare was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world‘s pre-eminent dramatist. Shakespeare‘s works, including some collaborations, consist of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, two epitaphs, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other…
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mathematics
Kolmogorov and the Foundations of Probability Theory

Kolmogorov and the Foundations of Probability Theory

Harald Sack
On April 25, 1903, Soviet mathematician Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov was born. He was one of the most important mathematicians of the 20th century, who advanced various scientific fields, among them probability theory, topology, intuitionistic logic, turbulence, classical mechanics, algorithmic information theory and computational complexity. “The epistemological value of probability theory is based on the fact that chance phenomena, considered collectively and on a grand scale, create non-random regularity.” – Andrey Kolmogorov, Limit Distributions…
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archeology
The Successful Salvage of the Unfortunate Vasa

The Successful Salvage of the Unfortunate Vasa

Tabea Tietz
On the morning of 24 April, 1961, the Swedish warship Vasa was salvaged with a largely intact hull after it had sunk after sailing less than a nautical mile (ca 2 km) into its maiden voyage on 10 August 1628 at Stockholm harbour. A LArge Swedish Naval Presence in the Baltic While Sweden counted rather as a poor and small country before the 17th century, the government established one of the most…
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physics
Max Planck and the Quantum Theory

Max Planck and the Quantum Theory

Tabea Tietz
On April 23, 1858, German theoretical physicist Max Planck was born, who originated quantum theory, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” – Max Planck, Interview in ‘The Observer’ (25 January 1931), p.17, column 3 Childhood in Munich Max Karl…
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history
How Mosaic has Changed the World

How Mosaic has Changed the World

Harald Sack
On April 22, 1993, version 1.0 of NCSA Mosaic, or simply Mosaic, was released, the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web. It was the first Web browser as we know today with a graphical user interface enabling an interactive easy to use browsing experience. And without graphics the Web as we know it today would not exist. NCSA Mosaic was the web browser that led to the Internet boom…
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