Francisco José de Caldas: A Scientist at Work in Nueva Granada

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American Philosophical Society, 1994 - 154 páginas
A study of Francisco Jose de Caldas y Tenorio, who was born in 1768 in the Spanish colony Nueva Reino de Granada. In the first half of the 18th century France sent an expedition to the equator to learn the true figure of the Earth. However, Spain maintained strict control over the colonies' access to books and other Europeans' access to the colonies. Caldas, with a fervent interest in science and lacking the educational resources and personal contacts available in Europe, developed a scientific program based on what was available to him. The arrival of the Prussian naturalist, Alexander von Humboldt, brought to a head Caldas's discontent with his own isolation from the European community. Black and white illustrations.
 

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Página 65 - Memoria sobre el estado de las Quinas en general y en particular sobre la de Loja.
Página 69 - In fact it would not be much of an exaggeration to say that the style Louis XI V is the style Berain.
Página 15 - WE Knowles Middleton. A History of the Thermometer and Its Uses in Meteorology (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1966), pp. 4-23. 5. See. RE Gibson, "Our Heritage from Galileo Galilei,
Página 18 - ... build up a geometry in which the variable element is the line rather than the point? (d) If so, would not the algebraic work of the two geometries be identical ; and, therefore, could we not infer from each theorem already developed a new one differing from the old by an interchange of point and line? The answers to these questions lie beyond the scope of the present volume, but the student who will follow them up will find that they lead into one of the most interesting fields of modern mathematical...
Página 88 - His passing was not unexpected as he had been in failing health for a number of years. At the time of his death Mutis was attended by his disciples- Salvador Rizo, Sinforoso Mutis.
Página 7 - Celestino Mutis y sus Observaciones sobre las Vigilias y Suenos de Algunas Plantas.
Página 40 - Somehow, though, the problem evaporated as he became more and more involved with the work of the Expedition.
Página 12 - Caldas discovered for himself that the boiling point of water varies with atmospheric pressure and used that fact to construct his own scale to make a hypsometric (hypsos: height; metron: measure) thermometer (Fig. 2). This "discovery...

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