Der Bundesdatenschutzbeauftragte Peter Schaar hat die geplante EU-Datenschutzverordnung prinzipiell begrüßt und die Kritik von Bundesinnenminister Hans-Peter Friedrich zurückgewiesen.
It is the best selling book series ever in history. A fantastic story stretching over seven books of a boy, growing up in between the two worlds of ordinary people - the muggles - and the wizards and witches. It's about the old story of fighting of good against evil. And as the books sold over 400 million copies world wide, almost nobody could escape the news and the story behind the books, too. The story of J. K. Rowling, a single mother living on social security and becoming a multi-millionaire simply because of a children's book within a time frame of only 5 years.
On this day in 1750 one of the most important and productive composers of the Baroque period, Johann Sebastian Bach died. Bach's abilities as an organist were highly respected throughout Europe during his lifetime, although he was not widely recognised as a great composer until a revival of interest and performances of his music in the first half of the 19th century.
958 years ago today, Chinese astronomers observed a new star in the constellation of Taurus, which later turned out to be a supernova.
China was able to contribute to the developments in the science of astronomy critically. In their philosophy, the harmony between earth, the sky and humankind were essential, and therefore any disturbance to that balance had to be predicted. This believe caused the astronomers of the historical China a great status, they were able to predict comets like no other culture. Also, the precise predictions were caused by the critical consequences the responsible astronomer had to face in case of a false prognosis.
301 years ago, the great Philosopher David Hume was born. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy as well as the Scottish Enlightenment. In his 'Treatise of Human Nature' (1739), he was about to create a total naturalistic "science of man" examining the psychological basis of human nature.
207 years ago, the German poet, philosopher, and historian Friedrich Schiller passed away. As a representative of the Weimar Classicism and the 'Sturm und Drang' (Storm and Drive) movement, Schiller published some of the most influential works of the time.
British Philosopher John Stuart Mill died, maybe the most influential english-speaking philosopher of the 19th century. His views still are significance today and are generally recognized to be among the deepest and certainly the most effective defenses of empiricism and of a liberal political view of society and culture.
236 years ago today, Adam Weishaupt, the first lay professor of canon law, founded the secret order of Illuminati at the University of Ingolstadt on May 1st 1776. It was made up of freethinkers as an offshoot of the Enlightenment and seems to have been modeled on the Freemasons.
Yesterday 94 years ago, famous physicist and nobel laureate Richard Feynman was born. Ever since my first days at university, Feynman has been one of my absolute heroes of science. Of course I already knew his name back at school, when we first learned about Feynman diagrams named after him and I have had heard about his famous physics lectures. But when I happend to read his autobiographical book "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman - Adventures of a Curious Character" I became a fan. I guess, reading about Feynman and finally watching his lectures on video also was one of the (many) reasons why I became a scientist.
61 years ago today, on June 14th 1951 the very first electronic computer produced in series (and in the United States), the UNIVAC I (Universal Automatic Computer) was delivered to the US States Census Bureau at the price of $1.6 Mio. It was designed principally by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly, the inventors of the first general-purpose electronic computer, the ENIAC.
195 years ago, philosopher and author Henry David Thoreau was born. He is probably best known today for his book 'Walden', a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, as well as for his essay 'Civil Disobedience', an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.
180 years ago, famous mathematician Évariste Galois was killed in a duell. He was only 20 years old. And why? Just because of a girl. Her name was Stéphanie-Félicie Poterine du Motel, the daughter of a physician.
Taxonomy as a science has been founded by the 18th century Swedish botanist Carl Linné (later enobled Carl von Linné or more fashionable in Latin Carolus Linnaeus). He was born 305 years ago in 1707 and after some difficulties right at the start - he was a rather sluggish student and his dissapointed father saw no other option than to apprentice him to a cobbler...
On May 27th 1937 The Golden Gate Bridge of San Francisco spanning over the opening of the San Francisco Bay and connecting the City with Marin County was opened for public traffic. When the planning for the bridge started back in 1916 many experts said that a bridge couldn’t be built across the 6,700 ft (2,042 m) strait.
You know, the fact that you can read your email on a cell phone as well as on your desktop computer or almost any other computer connected to the internet, in principle is possible thanks to mathematician Alonzo Church, who gave the proof (together with Alan Turing) that everything that is computable on the simple model of a Turing Machine, also is computable with any other 'computer model'.
On June 10th 1829 the very first of now legendary annual boat races of Oxford and Cambridge on the river Thames took place. The race came about because two friends from Harrow School, Charles Wordsworth (nephew of the poet William Wordsworth), of Christ Church College, Oxford, and Charles Merrivale of St. John’s, Cambridge, met during the vacation in Cambridge, where Wordsworth’s father was master of Trinity. Wordsworth went rowing on the river Cam, and the two school fellows decided to set up a challenge.
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