- published: 31 Aug 2015
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Johannes Kepler (German pronunciation: [ˈkʰɛplɐ]; December 27, 1571 – November 15, 1630) was a German mathematician, astronomer and astrologer. A key figure in the 17th century scientific revolution, he is best known for his eponymous laws of planetary motion, codified by later astronomers, based on his works Astronomia nova, Harmonices Mundi, and Epitome of Copernican Astronomy. These works also provided one of the foundations for Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation.
During his career, Kepler was a mathematics teacher at a seminary school in Graz, Austria, where he became an associate of Prince Hans Ulrich von Eggenberg. Later he became an assistant to astronomer Tycho Brahe, and eventually the imperial mathematician to Emperor Rudolf II and his two successors Matthias and Ferdinand II. He was also a mathematics teacher in Linz, Austria, and an adviser to General Wallenstein. Additionally, he did fundamental work in the field of optics, invented an improved version of the refracting telescope (the Keplerian Telescope), and mentioned the telescopic discoveries of his contemporary Galileo Galilei.
Tycho Brahe (14 December 1546 – 24 October 1601), born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations. Coming from Scania, then part of Denmark, now part of modern-day Sweden, Tycho was well known in his lifetime as an astronomer and alchemist.
In his De nova stella (On the new star) of 1573, he refuted the Aristotelian belief in an unchanging celestial realm. His precise measurements indicated that "new stars" (novae or also now known as supernovae), in particular that of 1572, lacked the parallax expected in sub-lunar phenomena, and were therefore not "atmospheric" tail-less comets as previously believed, but occurred above the atmosphere and moon. Using similar measurements he showed that comets were also not atmospheric phenomena, as previously thought, and must pass through the supposed "immutable" celestial spheres.
Tycho Brahe was granted an estate on the island of Hven and the funding to build the Uraniborg, an early research institute, where he built large astronomical instruments and took many careful measurements, and later Stjerneborg, underground, when he discovered that his instruments in the former were not sufficiently steady. Something of an autocrat on the island he nevertheless founded manufactories such as paper-making to provide material for printing his results. After disagreements with the new Danish king in 1597, he was invited by the Bohemian king and Holy Roman emperor Rudolph II to Prague, where he became the official imperial astronomer. He built the new observatory at Benátky nad Jizerou. Here, from 1600 until his death in 1601, he was assisted by Johannes Kepler. Kepler later used Tycho's astronomical results to develop his own theories of astronomy.
Carl Edward Sagan ( /ˈseɪɡɪn/; November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in astronomy and natural sciences. He published more than 600 scientific papers and articles and was author, co-author or editor of more than 20 books. He advocated scientifically skeptical inquiry and the scientific method, pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).
Sagan is known for his popular science books and for the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which he narrated and co-wrote. The book Cosmos was published to accompany the series. Sagan wrote the novel Contact, the basis for a 1997 film of the same name.
Carl Sagan was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a Ukrainian Jewish family. His father, Sam Sagan, was an immigrant garment worker from Kamenets-Podolsk, Ukraine; his mother, Rachel Molly Gruber, a housewife. Carl was named in honor of Rachel's biological mother, Chaiya Clara, in Sagan's words, "the mother she never knew." Sagan graduated from Rahway High School in Rahway, New Jersey, in 1951.
Actors: Nicolas Bro (actor), Rasmus Botoft (actor), Lars Ranthe (actor), Lisbeth Wulff (actress), Thomas Ravn (editor), Lisbeth Jessen (writer), Lisbeth Jessen (director), Mette Frank (actress),
Genres: Documentary,Actors: Ryan Junell (producer), Ryan Junell (editor), Ryan Junell (director), Ryan Junell (writer), Ryan Junell (actor), Brian L. Perkins (actor), David Cerf (actor), Erin Bradley (actress), M.C. Schmidt (actor), Angie Hile (actress), Lesser J. (actor), Sagan (composer), Lance Grabmiller (actor), Wobbly (actor), Drew Daniel (actor),
Plot: Unseen Forces (2004) is a hilarious sequence of vignettes from the history of science to Sagan's music. Sidestepping any expectations of high falutin' experimental art video in favor of slapstick narrative, these wryly subtitled re-enactments of important historical breakthroughs come off as a weird hybrid of Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time" and Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains the Same". Commencing with a turtlenecked Carl Sagan lookalike invoking the sun, Junell's film proceeds to romp anachronistically across history in a playful homage to "Cosmos": The Big Bang is restaged by a flashlight-wielding modern dance troupe (played by real life astronomy buffs recruited online), whose cosmic choreography goes largely unnoticed by their glib, uncomprehending audience. The Greek Rationalist discovery that air is a substance is refigured as a gay pick up technique in an ice cream parlour, with Matmos' M. C. Schmidt and Drew Daniel playing Empedocles and Pausanias. In the final scene, married couple Blevin Blectum and J Lesser re-enact the courtship of the Curies and their discovery of radiation as a Jerry Lewis-style tragicomedy.
Keywords: cosmos, logic, reason, scienceActors: Jan Kacer (actor), Martin Ruzek (actor), Leos Sucharípa (actor), Michael Kocáb (composer), Boris Hybner (actor), Ivan Vyskocil (actor), Jaroslav Kotouc (miscellaneous crew), Michael Havas (director), Johnny Dubach (editor), Danielle Josefowitz (producer), Zorz Camov (producer), Edda von Samson (producer),
Genres: History,Actors: Ota Sklencka (actor), Július Vasek (actor), Petr Cepek (actor), Jirí Brozek (editor), Jan Kacer (actor), Jan Kanyza (actor), Lubomír Kostelka (actor), Milos Nedbal (actor), Vít Olmer (actor), Rudolf Hrusínský (actor), Jirí Bartoska (actor), Leos Sucharípa (actor), Jan Kropácek (costume designer), Ilja Racek (actor), Milan Knazko (actor),
Genres: Drama, History,Actors: Günter Junghans (actor), Thomas Langhoff (actor), Gerd Ehlers (actor), Reimar J. Baur (actor), Rolf Hoppe (actor), Erik S. Klein (actor), Kurt Böwe (actor), Dieter Franke (actor), Carl Heinz Choynski (actor), Michael Gerber (actor), Fred Delmare (actor), Hannjo Hasse (actor), Wolfgang Greese (actor), Werner Dissel (actor), Jörg Panknin (actor),
Genres: Drama,