Ptolemy's Contributions To The Field Of Geography example essay topic

Introduction In ancient times there were many great ideas which began to shape the way man perceived his environment. However, there were few minds who were able to put all of these ideas together. One of these minds belonged to Claudius Ptolemy, or just Ptolemy as he is commonly referred to. We know almost nothing of the chronology of Ptolemy " life, and we don't even know his birth or death dates. We do know, though, about his ideas in several fields, which include geography, astronomy, optics, astrology, music, another topics. His most profound and lasting contributions came in the fields of geography and astronomy, where his two written works Geography and Almagest dominated the thinking on these subjects throughout ancient times and for many centuries to follow.

To geographers, Geography represented a breakthrough in the spatial tradition of geography through Ptolemy's principles on cartography and the maps that were created from this. This will be reviewed as well as other aspects of Ptolemy's work that made him such a respected figure in the history of geography. Astronomy and Almagest It is important to mention the impact that Ptolemy had in the field of astronomy, as it allows us to understand the ideas that he was able to bring to geography. Ptolemy did his astronomical observations in Alexandria, Egypt, and it has been estimated by scholars that his findings were made in 150 AD After recording his observations and analyzing them, he incorporated them into a work that would be called the Almagest, which is a combined Greek and Latin term meaning "the greatest".

Almagest is revered a sone of the top astronomical works of all time, as it was a thirteen book mathematical treatment of the phenomena of astronomy. It contains a myriad of information ranging from earth conceptions to sun, moon, and star movement as well as eclipses and a breakdown on the length of months. Among his astronomical observations were the idea that th earth did not move, but rather it was the motionless center of the universe withthe sun, moon, planets, and stars revolving around it. Another of Ptolemy's ideas was thatthe planets were closer to the earth than the stars, but farther away than the moon (whic his true). These and other ideas were accepted as scientific fact for several centuries following the writing of Almagest. In fact, these ideas weren't changed or corrected until the findings of Copernicus in 1543.

Geography Although we don't know if Geography was written before or after Almagest, it remains a trivial side note compared to geographical concepts presented in it that draw the interest of geographers. The introduction to Geography states what Ptolemy wants to accomplish, which includes an explanation of the principles of cartography such as giving coordinates to places around the world and geographic features as well as recommendations for making world and regional maps. He then starts his coverage of theworld with Europe in Books 2 and 3. He goes on to cover Africa in Book 4 and covers Asia and summarizes his findings in Books 5-8.

Geography included 26 colorized regional maps as well as one map of the "known world". Ptolemy stayed away from orthogonal (or cylindrical) world mapping in favor of three other projection types. He returns to orthogonal projection on some regional maps with dimensions based on mean latitude. The farthest point north on his map was Thule at 63 degrees north, while the farthest point south was the Agy simba and Pra sum promontory east of Africa at 16 degrees, 25 minutes south.

He measured the north-south length of the known world to be about 7392 kilometers or 4580 miles, while his east-west measurement was about 13,306 kilometers or 8250 miles. Geography held the same respect in the field of geography that Almagest had in astronomy. Geography was regarded as a complete and inerrant document on the subject of geography, and it dominated geographical theory until the Renaissance. The Almagest is now regarded as a better document than Geography scientifically.

This is because the application of the concepts presented in Geography was substantially limited, although advances in geography theory were made. Actions After Geography Ptolemy's work has been discovered and used through the ages by several noted people around the world. Arabic writer al-Mas " udi, while writing around 956, mentioned a colored map of the Geography which had 4530 cities and over 200 mountains. Byzantine monk Maximus Pla nudes found a copy of the Geography in 1295, and since there were no maps in his copy, he drew his own based on the coordinates found in the text. The first Latin translation of the Geography was made in 1406 by Florentine Jacobus Angelus, and since this, various translations in other languages have been made available to people all over the world. However, the most important discovery of Ptolemy " geography may have been made by Christopher Columbus.

Columbus obtained one ofthe first Latin editions of the book (an edition printed in 1475) without the maps. We know that he definitely considered Ptolemy's distances while he was creating his own maps since his text of the Geography has some annotations in it and bears his signature (this text is currently in Madrid). In fact, scholars believe that Ptolemy's information may have encouraged Columbus to make his famous voyage. After the voyages by Columbus and Magellan that were sponsored by Prince Henry the Navigator, Ptolemy's maps we refound to be rather exaggerated and in need of revision.

The land mass from Spain to China was overestimated by Ptolemy and the ocean size was too small, and this was due to the limits placed on his ability to measure precisely, as was mentioned above. However, the discoveries made by Columbus and Magellan did not overshadowPtolemy's work and his contributions to the mapping of the world. An example of this isth at his maps, although erroneous, continued to have some their conceptions placed maps of Africa until the 19th century in some cases. Conclusion As we have seen, Ptolemy's contributions to the field of geography have been quite remarkable. Although his findings may not have been perfectly correct, he inspired other notable people such Columbus to research his results and make correction to them where it was necessary.

His principles on cartography were particularly innovative in time where maps were either in a nonexistent or very primitive stage. When his work and influence in the field of astronomy is considered in addition to his work in geography, it can be concluded that Ptolemy was indeed of the great scientific minds of the ancient era. The Andromeda Strain Andromeda Strain starts when a satellite, code named "Scoop", crash lands in the middle of a small town in the southwestern United States called Piedmont. When the US Army went to pick it up everyone in the town of 48 was dead except an old man and a young baby.

The Army realized that the deaths were probably the result of the crashed satellite, so they sent men clothed in bio-hazard suits to retrieve the remains of the crashed probe Scoop and the two surviving humans. Then they took them back to a secret underground lab known as "Wildfire". The scientists at Wildfire were amazed by what they saw. After spending many hours looking at the satellite with an electron microscope, they found little pieces of what looked like luminescent paint. They cut away a single molecule of the substance and saw that it was a crystal life form. The crystal used everything, wasted nothing, and grew in every substance known to man.

To make matters worse, it grew and multiplied very quickly. Now that the scientists at Wildfire knew what caused the deaths at Piedmont, they had to figure out how to control it. They did a lot of different tests on the crystal and found out that it grew on every known substance. The US government's code named forthe project was "Andromeda". There were no new reported deaths related to AndromedaStrain near Piedmont or any other neighboring towns. The scientists assumed the it was dead.

Then a story came through that a fighter pilot had flown over the area and afterwards his air mask and everything else made or rubber just dissolved into thin air. Meanwhile the President of the United States was being told about AndromedaStrain. With hopes of eliminating the threat, the President considered and agreed to dropping a nuclear bomb on the Piedmont area. At the same time the team at Wildfire had come upon a major discovery. The Andromeda Strain thrived on energy sources like plutonium and radiation. They realized that the President was planning on nuking the Piedmont area, which would result in a huge spread of this disease.

Their only hope was that the Andromeda Strain would either mutate into a non-fatal form, or that their continued experiments would uncover a cure or a way to make it harmless. The President took back his previous order to drop the bomb. During this debate about dropping the bomb, some of the researchers realized why the old man and the boy did not die. Andromeda could only survive in a very narrow range of blood pH.

If anyone's blood wastoo acid (the old man had two bleeding stomach ulcers) or too alkaline (the baby had been crying for hours causing the alkalinity in his blood to increase), then the AndromedaStrain could not survive in that person's body. There was still no way to contain Andromeda, which had turned in to a non lethal form and it spread throughout the whole southwestern US Meanwhile, the people at Wildfire did all they could to prevent Andromeda from mutating again. They seeded the clouds over the Pacific Ocean where Andromeda was so the rain would force Andromeda into the ocean where the water would be too acidic for it to survive. The most talked about characters in Andromeda Strain are Dr. Mark Hall, Dr. Peter Leavitt and Dr. Jeremy Stone.

Dr. Stone was the head of all operations at Wildfire in away because he helped plan and make it happen. Most of the story depended on Dr. Hall. He was the only single man among the other scientists. He also made many of the important discoveries. The Telephone THE INVENTION The telephone is a device that was such a wonder in its early days but now we just take it for granted.

Life would be very different without the telephone and its spin-offs like the fax machine, the computer with modem or the cellular phone. All of these are based on some of the principles of the telephone. The telephone makes many things possible, whether its talking to someone on the other side of the world or next door. It all started in 1854 when the French inventor Charles Bourse ul suggested that vibrations from the voice could move a diaphragm and connect and disconnect an electric circuit. This would produce similar vibrations in a diaphragm at another location, where the original sound would be reproduced. A few years later, the German physicist Johann Philip Reis invented an instrument that transmitted musical tones but could not reproduce speech.

This only worked with musical notes but an American inventor named Alexander Graham Bell discovered that only a steady electric current could be used to transmit speech. So he improved the idea and produced the first telephone capable of transmitting and receiving human speech with any quality. The basic unit of Bell's invention consisted of a transmitter, a receiver, and single connecting wire. The transmitter and receiver were identical; each contained a flexible metallic diaphragm and a horseshoe magnet with a wire coil. Sound waves would strike the diaphragm cause it to vibrate in the field of the magnet. This vibration generated an electric current in the coil that varied in proportion to the vibrations of the diaphragm.

Then the current traveled through a wire to the receiving station, where it produced changes in the strength of the magnetic field of the receiver, causing its diaphragm to vibrate and reproducing the original sound. In the receiver of a modern telephone the magnet has been flattened into the for mof a watch, and the magnetic field acting on an iron diaphragm has been made more exact and uniform. The modern transmitter consists of a thin diaphragm mounted behind a perforated grill. At the center of the diaphragm is a small dome that makes an enclosure filled with carbon granules. Sound waves pass through the grill and make the dome move in and out. When the diaphragm presses in, the granules become densely packed, allowing an increase in the flow of current through the transmitter.

In early telephones the current was generated by a battery. In addition to a battery and a transmitter, there was one winding of a transformer called an induction coil; the other winding, connected to the line, increased the voltage of the sound wave. The connections between telephones were made manually, by operators working at switchboards located in central switching offices. The switchboard operators were usually women because it was considered to easy for a mans work and the managers could get women to work for cheaper. As telephone systems grew, manual switching wastoo slow and labor intensive.

This provided the development of a series of mechanical and electronic devices that allowed switching to be done automatically. In the modern telephone, an electronic device transmits either a number of successive impulses of current or a series of audible tones corresponding to the number being called. Electronic equipment at a central switching station automatically translates the signal and routes the call to the receiving party. The signal of modern telephones is relayed through at least one of these methods, by standard telephone cable, undersea telephone cable, radio or satellite. A computer modem uses the same idea as a telephone but instead of converting voice into electrical impulses and back, it turns digital information from a computer into electrical impulses and back MoDem- Mo = modulate, Dem = demodulate THE Inventor Alexander Graham Bell was an American inventor and teacher of the deaf, ofcourse he is most famous for his invention of the telephone.

He was born on March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland, and educated at the universities of Edinburgh and London. He immigrated to Canada in 1870 and to the United States in 1871. In the United State she began teaching students that were either deaf, mute or both. He taught by the system called visible speech.

This system, was developed by his father, a Scottish educator named Alexander Melville Bell. It shows how the lips, tongue, and throat are used to make sound. In 1872 Bell founded a school for deaf-mutes in Boston, Massachusetts. The school later became part of Boston University, where Bell was appointed professor of vocal physiology. He became a naturalized US citizen in 1882. Ever since the age of 18, Bell had been working on the idea of transmitting speech.

In 1874, while working on a multiple telegraph, he developed the basic ideas forthe telephone. His experiments with his assistant Thomas Watson finally proved successful on March 10, 1876, when the first complete sentence was transmitted: Watson, come here; I want you. At the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, introduced the telephone to the world and this led to the organization ofthe Bell Telephone Company in 1877. In 1880 France gave Bell the Volta Prize, worth 50,000 francs, for his invention. With this money he founded the Volta Laboratory in Washington, D.C., where, in that same year, he and his associates invented thephotophone, which transmits speech by light rays.

Some of his other inventions included the audiometer, used to measure acuity in hearing; the induction balance, used to locate metal objects in human bodies. He also made the first wax recording cylinder in 1886. This cylinder, together with the flat wax disc, formed the basis of the modern phonograph. Bell was one of the co founders of the National Geographic Society, and he served as its president from 1896 to 1904.

He also founded the journal Science in 1883. After 1895 Bell's interest turned mostly to aeronautics. Many of his inventions in this area were first tested near his summer home at Bad deck on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada. His study of flight began with the construction of large kites, and in 1907 he devised a kite capable of carrying a person. With a group of associates, including the American inventor and aviator Glenn Hammond Curtiss, Bell developed the aileron, a movable section of an airplane wing. They also developed the tricycle landing gear, which first permitted takeoff and landing on a flying field.

Applying the principles of aeronautics to marine propulsion, his group started work on hydrofoil boats, which travel above the water at high speeds. His final full-sized hydro drome, developed in 1917, reached speeds in excess of 113 km / h (70 mph) and for many years was the fastest boat in the world. Area 51 Area 51, is it a government cover-up or does it just exist in the minds of some people After researching it would be almost impossible to say itdoesn't exist. With all of the current information that has been leaking out and that Area 51 is in fact visible from the top of a ridge it must be there. Deep in the mountains of Nevada is a secret military base dubbed Area 51 for some odd reason. This secret base is not there according to government officials.

Area 51, is in south central Nevada 120 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It is between isolated desert mountain ranges and near the Atomic Energy Commissions nuclear bomb test area. If you look at Federal Aviation Administration pilot maps and charts you will not see it, all you will see is flat dry expanse of land called Groom Lake. Area 51 has many other nicknames such as Dreamland, The Ranch, The Box, Watertown, The Strip and The Pig Farm. This secret air base built on the now dried up Groom Lake was started in 1954, when the CIA gave Lockheed a contract to start designing and building a spy plane that could fly higher and faster than any other plane.

They named this project U-2 and the main target was The Soviet Union. Once built they needed a place to keep it a secret, the test pilot named Tony LeVier was sent off in a small plane to find a the spot. He chose Groom Lake for its remoteness and it being near the Atomic Energy Commissions nuclear bomb test area. This helped cover up the building of the runway, hangar and other buildings needed for the U-2. Many other things are said to have happened at Area 51, flight testing or the SR-71 and the A-12 in 1962. Covertly obtained Soviet fighters were hidden and flight tested here and the-117 first flew from Area 51 in the early 1980's.

New projects started during the Reagan administration and a replacement for the SR-71 called the Aurora began flying out of Area 51. Since March 1994 the Air Force has been trying to close off Freedom Ridge, Crisis Corner, White Sides and the Supplemental Hills that make up 4,000 acres of land owned by BLM that overlook Area 51. The governmental ready seized 89,000 acres of land from BLM in 1984. There is already a formidable ring of security way off the base on public land to keep unwanted people out. This consists of a fence line monitored by solar powered video cameras and signs that say Use of Deadly Force Authorized. There is one group of watchers that call themselves the Dreamland Interceptors.

They come to watch the secret military aircraft and to see where tax dollars are going. These people camp on top of White Sides where they keep a look out or what they call bird watching. They use equipment like binoculars, spotting scopes, radio-frequency scanners, night-vision goggles, tape recorders, dark clothing, walkie-talkies and most important to them lawn chairs. At Groom Lake, most of what is needed like people, supplies and the aircraft being tested are brought in the expensive way, by air. The large Aircraft are disassembled then delivered like everything else in a huge cargo plane.

Civilian listeners have put two and two together and by using scanners they have followed the Boeing 737 jets to an airport terminal by a defense contractor called EG&G Corp. They flight code name is Janet, this base makes 10 - 12 flights per day. With that many transport jets it is estimated that 1,500 - 2,500 people work at Area 51. Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill was born on November 30, 1874. He is known for his courageous leadership as prime minister during World War II. He graduated from the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. Winston served in India and the Sudan and became a correspondent during the Boer War.

A daring escape after he had been captured made him a national hero. In 1900 he was elected to Parliament as a Conservative, in 1904 he switched to the Liberal party. Then in 1910-11 he worked for special reform with David Lloyd George as home secretary. Churchill's role in World War I was controversial and almost destroyed his career. Between his problems with the Navy and his support for the disastrous Gallipoli campaign forced his resignation. From 1917 to 1922 he filled several important positions, including minister of munitions and secretary for war.

While he was a battalion commander in France, he joined Lloyd George's coalition cabinet. After the collapse of Lloyd George and the Liberal party in 1922 Churchill was left out of Parliament between 1922 and 1924. Then he returned in 1924 and became chancellor of the Exchequer in Stanley Baldwin's Conservative government. He showed conservatism by returning Britain to the gold standard and condemning the trade unions during a strike in 1926. During the depression years (1929-39) Churchill was denied a cabinet office. Neville Chamberlain, who dominated the national government from 1931 to 1940 disliked Churchill's idea for India to be self-governed and his support of Edward V To Churchill, Chamberlain's association with Adolph Hitler at Munich in 1938 aroused suspicion.

When Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, however, Churchill's views were finally appreciated, and the public " so pinion demanded his return. Churchill succeeded Chamberlain as prime minister on May 10, 1940. During the dark days of World War II that followed Churchill's rousing speeches rallied the British to continue the fight. He urged his fellow citizens to conduct themselves so that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour. By good dealings with President Franklin D. Roosevelt he was able to get military aid and moral support from the United States.

After the Soviet Union and the US entered the war in 1941, Churchill established close ties with leaders of what he called the Grand Alliance. He traveled throughout the war and did a lot to coordinate military strategy and to guarantee Hitler's defeat. His meetings with Roosevelt and Stalin shaped the map Europe after the war. By 1945 he was admired throughout theworld, even though Britain's military role had become secondary.

Churchill was defeated by the Labour party in the election of 1945 because he ignored the demands for social change after the war. He made his Iron Curtain speech in Missouri, in 1946, it was the about the dangers of Soviet expansion. He was prime minister again from 1951 to 1955, but now his old age and poor health prevented him from providing good leadership. Churchill received a Nobel Prize for literature and a knighthood in 1953. Churchill resigned in 1955 and devoted his last years to painting and writing. He died on January 24, 1965, at the age of 90.

Following a state funeral he was buried near Blenheim Palace. The death of Churchill in 1965, like the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, marked the end of an era in British history. He participated in Britain's transformation from empire to welfare state, and its decline as a world power. His true importance is the fact that with sheer stubborn courage he led the British people, the from defeat to a final victory in the greatest conflict the world has seen. Spanish-American War The Spanish-American War started when the United States waged war on Spain in 1898. It started because the war was fought in the Spanish colonies of the Philippines and Cuba.

The United State government got mad at the Spanish Governor because he sent many Cuban citizens to re concentration camps. President McKinley tried to keep neutral but at first Spain would not pull out of Cuba. McKinley offered to just buy Cuba but that didn't happen. The event that got the United States into the war was when the Spanish sunk the Maine, a United States battle ship.

At the same time there were problems in the Philippines with the Spanish once again. The United State government got angry at the Spanish governor-generalValeriano Weyler. Weyler had ordered many Cuban men, women and children intoreconcentration camps. He wasn't able to tell the citizens from the rebels and in these camps around 200,000 of the population died from illness and starvation. This upset American citizens. American President at the time, Grover Cleveland said if "the useless sacrifice of human life " went on then the US would take action.

President McKinley took office midway through the conflict and he too tried to stay neutral, he even tried to buy Cuba to " avert this terrible calamity" but his plan was rejected. In 1897 an attempt to settle the conflict was made by the Spanish prime minister, Prxedes Mateo Sagata. Partial control was to be given to the Cubans, and the outrageous system of prison camps was to be abolished. But this wasn't enough and they continued to try for complete independence. The Spanish Ambassador for the United States, Enrique Dupuy de Lome wrote a letter and it was published in the Journal and in the letter he called McKinley " weak and a bidder of the crowd... ".

. This caused the ambassador to resign and this wasn " many help to the relation between Spain and the US. Six days later the Maine, an American battleship was sunk off the coast of Cuba near Havana. Two hundred and sixty of the crew members were killed. US naval experts discovered that the blast came from outside the ship meaning it was sunk intentionally. The Spanish said that they had no mines inthe area.

The press or more reliable the yellow press "discovered" that Spain was responsible and they even found some diagrams showing how it was done. Congress took action and allocated 50 million dollars in war funds. McKinley demanded that Spain give Cuba full independence. When Spain did not reply, Congress declared war on April 25. The expansionists of the nation were thrilled to get more land but their dreams were dazzled when Congress attached the Teller Agreement that left the Cubans in control after peace was made. With the war declared there was a huge demand for volunteers to become soldiers.

There were only 28,000 at the time so McKinley called for 200,000 volunteers. The hard part was to organize some 17,000 of those volunteers and the current troops into a usable and powerful force. These troops left in June for Cuba from Tampa, Florida. Supplies were low and the soldiers were given old wool uniforms, out dated ammunition, meager medical supplies and almost inedible rations. The group that probably helped the most was a group called the Rough Riders, these were once horse back soldiers but their horses were in Florida so they resorted to foot travel.

This group took the hill overlooking Santiago. In this war there were also 4 units of African American soldiers to lend a hand for their country. Four of these soldiers were awarded with a Congressional Medal of Honor. The Spanish-American War all started because Spain wouldn't let Cuba and the Philippines run the way they wanted.

Spain treated the people there very badly and all along the United States tried to stay neutral but after a battleship, the Maine was sunk while in Harbor near Havana the United States declared war on Spain. The United Statesdidn't have enough military personal so they got around 17,000 volunteer soldiers to supplement the force they already had so they could go to war. The expansionists got very excited about getting another territory so they could maybe add another star to the flag down the road. But the humanitarians in Congress attached the Teller Amendment tothe declaration of war that did not allow this to happen. The Spanish-American War is war like most others the United States has fought in, it could have easily been avoided.