I remember when I was a teenager. After leaving my hometown, Andorra La Vella,my familyand I lived in a little town in the Garraf coast near Barcelona.
It was a fishermen village with large beaches of white sand and a quiet sea.
We were very young and ourstory wasvery short, but I still remember him, I still remember when we were young. Now, he is like a shadow that accompanies meeverywhere. I will never forget him. He will be always on my mind and my memories.
The Grandma
Today, The Winsors and The Grandma have met Adele, one of the best singers of all time. They were very excited and happy.
Before this wonderful visit, the family has studied some English grammar with ToBe (Past) and Could/Couldn't, and they have talked about the myth of eternal youth with Bram Stoker's character, Dracula, and Oscar Wilde's The Pictureof Dorian Gray.
Adele Laurie Blue Adkins (born 5 May 1988), known mononymously as Adele, is an English singer-songwriter. She is known for her mezzo-soprano vocals and sentimental songwriting.
Adele
has received numerous accolades including 16 Grammy Awards, 12 Brit
Awards (including three for British Album of the Year), an Academy
Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Golden Globe Award.
After graduating in arts from the BRIT School in 2006, Adele signed a record deal with XL Recordings. Her debut album, 19, was released in 2008 and included the UK top-five singles Chasing Pavements and Make You Feel My Love.
19
has sold over 2.5 million copies in the UK and was named in the top 20
best-selling debut albums of all time in the UK. She was honoured with
the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.
Adele released her second studio album, 21, in 2011. It became the world's best-selling album of the 21st century, with sales of over 31 million. 21 holds the record for the top-performing album in US chart history, topping the Billboard 200 for 24 weeks, with the singles Rolling in the Deep, Someone like You, and Set Fire to the Rain
heading charts worldwide, becoming her signature songs. The album
received a record-tying six Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year.
In 2012, Adele released Skyfall, a soundtrack single for the James Bond film Skyfall, which won her the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
Adele's third studio album, 25,
was released in 2015, breaking first-week sales records in the UK and
US. In the US, it remains the only album to sell over three million
copies in a week. 25 earned her five Grammy Awards, including the Album of the Year. The lead single, Hello, achieved huge success worldwide. Her fourth studio album, 30, released in 2021, contains the chart-topping and Grammy-winning single Easy on Me. 25 and 30 became the best-selling albums worldwide, including the US and the UK, in 2015 and 2021, respectively.
As of 2023, all of her studio albums, except 19, have topped the yearly best-selling albums chart worldwide in the 21st century.
Adele is one of the world's best-selling music artists,
with sales of over 120 million records worldwide. The best-selling
female artist of the 21st century in the UK, she was named the
best-selling artist of the 2010s decade in the US and worldwide.
Her studio albums 21 and 25
were the top two best-selling albums of the 2010s in the UK and both
are listed among the best-selling albums in UK chart history, while in
the US both are certified Diamond, the most of any artist who debuted in
the 21st century.
Today, The Grandma continues reading about Camelot and the Arthurianworld.
Camelot has become a permanent fixture in modern interpretations of the Arthurian legend. Thesymbolism of Camelot
so impressed Alfred, Lord Tennyson that he wrote up a prose sketch on
the castle as one of his earliest attempts to treat the legend.
Modern stories typically retain Camelot's lack of precise location and its status as a symbol of the Arthurian world, though they typically transform the castle itself into romantically lavish visions of a High Middle Ages palace.
Some writers of the realist strain of modern Arthurian fiction have attempted a more sensible Camelot.
Inspired by Alcock's Cadbury-Camelot excavation, some authors such as
Marion Zimmer Bradley and Mary Stewart place their Camelots in that
place and describe it accordingly.
King Arthur (in Welsh Brenin Arthur, in Cornish Arthur Gernow, in Breton Roue Arzhur) was a legendary Celtic Briton who, according to medieval histories and romances, was leader of the Celtic Britons in battles against Saxoninvaders of Britain in the late 5th and early 6th centuries.
Details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of Welsh mythology, English folklore and literary invention, and most historians of the period do not think that he was a historical figure.
Arthur is first recorded in sources which date to 300 years after he is supposed to have lived, the Annales Cambriae and the Historia Brittonum. His name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin.
Arthur is a central figure in the legends making up the Matter of Britain. The legendary Arthur
developed as a figure of international interest largely through the
popularity of Geoffrey of Monmouth's fanciful and imaginative
12th-century Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain).
In some Welsh and Breton tales and poems that date from before this work, Arthur appears
either as a great warrior defending Britain from human and supernatural
enemies or as a magical figure of folklore, sometimes associated with
the Welsh otherworld Annwn. How much of Geoffrey's Historia
(completed in 1138) was adapted from such earlier sources, rather than
invented by Geoffrey himself, is unknown.
Although the themes, events and characters of the Arthurian legend
varied widely from text to text, and there is no one canonical version,
Geoffrey's version of events often served as the starting point for
later stories. Geoffrey depicted Arthur as a king of Britain who
defeated the Saxons and established a vast empire. Many elements and
incidents that are now an integral part of the Arthurian story appear in Geoffrey's Historia, including Arthur's father UtherPendragon, the magician Merlin, Arthur's wife Guinevere, the sword Excalibur, Arthur's conception at Tintagel, his final battle against Mordred at Camlann, and final rest in Avalon.
The 12th-century French writer Chrétien de Troyes, who added Lancelot and the Holy Grail to the story, began the genre of Arthurian romance that became a significant strand of medieval literature. In these French stories, the narrative focus often shifts from King Arthur himself to other characters, such as various Knights of the Round Table.
Arthurian literature
thrived during the Middle Ages but waned in the centuries that
followed, until it experienced a major resurgence in the 19th century.
In the 21st century, the legend continues to have prominence, not only in literature but also in adaptations for theatre, film, television, comics and other media.
The Grandma is fascinated by KingArthur's world. She loves all the novels about the Arthurian cycle and she often read them once and again. She has decided to spend March, 8 reading about the magic and amazing world of Camelot and its inhabitants. One of the most umportant characteristics about the Arthurian Circle is that it's composed by different novels which explain different parts of Arthur's life and his Knights' lives. This new chapter talks about the sword in the stone, and TheGrandma has remember another Arthurian novel titled with the same name The sword in the stone and written by T.H.White. Arthur's legend includes the fantastic capital of his realm, Camelot. Camelot is a castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur.Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century Frenchromances and, after the Lancelot-Grail cycle, eventually came to be described as the fantastic capital of Arthur's realm and a symbol of the Arthurian world.
The stories locate it somewhere in Great Britain
and sometimes associate it with real cities, though more usually its
precise location is not revealed. Most scholars regard it as being
entirely fictional, its geography being perfect for chivalric romance
writers. Nevertheless, arguments about the location of the real Camelot have occurred since the 15th century and continue to rage today in popular works and for tourism purposes.
The name's derivation is uncertain. It has numerous different spellings in medieval French Arthurian romance, including: Camaalot, Camalot, Chamalot, Camehelot, sometimes read as Camchilot, Camaaloth, Caamalot, Camahaloth, Camaelot, Kamaalot, Kamaaloth, Kaamalot, Kamahaloth, Kameloth, Kamaelot, Kamelot, Kaamelot, Cameloth, Camelot and Gamalaot. Some suggested that it was a corruption of the site of Arthur's final battle, the Battle of Camlann, in Welsh tradition. Others believed it was derived from Cavalon, a place name that he suggested was a corruption of Avalon, under the influence of the Breton place name Cavallon.He further suggested that Cavalon/Camelot became Arthur's capital due to confusion with Arthur's other traditional court at Carlion, Caer Lleon in Welsh.
Some have suggested a derivation from the British Iron Age and Romano-British place name Camulodunum, one of the first capitals of Roman Britain and which would have significance in Romano-British culture. Others say that as the descendants of Romanized Britons looked back to a golden age of peace and prosperity under Rome, the name Camelot" of Arthurianlegend may have referred to the capital of Britannia, Camulodunum, modern Colchester, in Roman times. It is unclear, however, where Chrétien de Troyes would have encountered the name Camulodunum, or why he would render it as Camaalot. It is argued that Chretien had access to Book 2 of Pliny's Natural History, where it is rendered as Camaloduno. Given Chrétien's known tendency to create new stories and characters, being the first to mention the hero Lancelot's love affair with Queen Guinevere for example, the name might also be entirely invented. Arthur's court at Camelot is mentioned for the first time in Chrétien's poem Lancelot,the Knight of the Cart,dating to the 1170s, though it does not appear in all the manuscripts. Nothing in Chrétien's poem suggests the level of importance Camelot would have in later romances. For Chrétien, Arthur's chief court was in Caerleon in Wales; this was the king's primary base in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae and subsequent literature. Chrétien depicts Arthur, like a typical medieval monarch, holding court at a number of cities and castles.
It is not until the 13th-century French prose romances, including the Lancelot-Grail and the Post-Vulgate Cycle, that Camelot began to supersede Caerleon, and even then, many descriptive details applied to Camelot derive from Geoffrey's earlier grand depiction of the Welsh town. Most Arthurian romances of this period produced in English or Welsh did not follow this trend; Camelot was referred to infrequently, and usually in translations from French. One exception is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which locates Arthur'scourt at Camelot; however, in Britain, Arthur's court was generally located at Caerleon, or at Carlisle, which is usually identified with the Carduel of the French romances. In the late 15th century, Thomas Malory created the image of Camelot most familiar to English speakers today in his Le Morte d'Arthur, a work based mostly on the French romances.
He firmly identifies Camelot with Winchester in England, an identification that remained popular over the centuries, though it was rejected by Malory's own editor, William Caxton, who preferred a Welsh location.
The Lancelot-Grail Cycle and the texts it influenced depict the city of Camelot as standing along a river, downstream from Astolat. It is surrounded by plains and forests, and its magnificent cathedral, St. Stephen's, is the religious centre for Arthur's Knights of the Round Table. There, Arthur and Guinevere are married and there are the tombs of many kings and knights. In a mighty castle stands the Round Table; it is here that Galahad conquers the Siege Perilous, and where the knights see a vision of the Holy Grail and swear to find it. Jousts are held in a meadow outside the city.
In the Palamedes and other works, the castle is eventually destroyed by King Mark of Cornwall after the loss of Arthur at the Battle of Camlann. However maddening to later scholars searching for Camelot's location, its imprecise geography serves the romances well, as Camelot becomes less a literal place than a powerful symbol of Arthur's court and universe. There is a Kamaalot featured as the home of Perceval's mother in the romance Perlesvaus.
The romancers' versions of Camelot drew on earlier descriptions of Arthur'sfabulous court. From Geoffrey's grand description of Caerleon, Camelot gains its impressive architecture, its many churches and the chivalry and courtesy of its inhabitants. Geoffrey's description in turn drew on an already established traditionin Welsh oral tradition of the grandeur of Arthur's court. The tale Culhwch and Olwen,associated with the Mabinogion and perhaps written in the 11th century, draws a dramatic picture of Arthur's hall and his many powerful warriors who go from there on great adventures, placing it in Celliwig, an uncertain locale in Cornwall.
Although the court at Celliwig is the most prominent in remaining early Welsh manuscripts, the various versions of the Welsh Triads agree in giving Arthur multiple courts, one in each of the areas inhabited by the Celtic Britons: Cornwall, Wales and the Hen Ogledd.
This perhaps reflects the influence of widespread oral traditions
common by 800 which are recorded in various place names and features
such as Arthur's Seat,indicating Arthur was a hero known and associated with many locations across Brittonic areas of Britain as well as Brittany. Even at this stage Arthur could not be tied to one location. Many other places are listed as a location where Arthur holds court in the later romances, Carlisle and London perhaps being the most prominent. It is commented by Arthurian experts that Camelot, located no where in particular, can be anywhere. The romancers' versions of Camelot draw on earlier traditions of Arthur's fabulous court. The Celliwig of Culhwchand Olwen appears in the Welsh Triads as well; this early Welsh material places Wales' greatest leader outside its national boundaries. Geoffrey's description of Caerleon is probably based on his personal familiarity with the town and its impressive Roman ruins; it is less clear that Caerleon was associated with Arthur before Geoffrey. Several French romances, Perlesvaus, the Didot Perceval attributed to Robert de Boron, and even the early romances of Chrétien such as Erec and Enide and Yvain, the Knight of the Lion, have Arthur hold court at Carduel in Wales, a northern city based on the real Carlisle. Malory's identification of Camelot as Winchester was probably partially inspired by the latter city's history: it had been the capital of Wessex under Alfred the Great, and boasted the Winchester Round Table, an artifact constructed in the 13th century but widely believed to be the original by Malory's time. Caxton rejected the association, saying Camelot was in Wales and that its ruins could still be seen; this is a likely reference to the Roman ruins at Caerwent.
In 1542, John Leland reported the locals around Cadbury Castle, formerly known as Camalet, in Somerset considered it to be the original Camelot. This theory, which was repeated by later antiquaries, is bolstered, or may have derived from, Cadbury's proximity to the River Cam and the villages of Queen Camel and West Camel, and remained popular enough to help inspire a large-scale archaeological dig in the 20th century. These excavations, led by archaeologist Leslie Alcock from 1966–70, were titled Cadbury-Camelot
and won much media attention. The dig revealed that the site seems to
have been occupied as early as the 4th millennium BC and to have been
refortified and occupied by a major Brittonic ruler and his war
band from c.470. This early medieval settlement continued until around
580. The works were by far the largest known fortification of the
period, double the size of comparative caers and with Mediterranean artifacts representing extensive trade and Saxon ones showing possible conquest.
The use of the name Camelot and the support of Geoffrey Ashe helped ensure much publicity for the finds, but Alcock himself later grew embarrassed by the supposed Arthurian connection to the site. Following the arguments of David Dumville, Alcock felt the site was too late and too uncertain to be a tenable Camelot. Modern archaeologists follow him in rejecting the name, calling it instead Cadbury Castle hill fort. Despite this, Cadbury remains widely associated with Camelot.
The name of the Romano-British town of Camulodunum in Essex was derived from the Celtic god Camulus. However, it was located well within territory usually thought to have been conquered early in the 5th century by Saxons, so it is unlikely to have been the location of any trueCamelot. The town was definitely known as Colchester as early as the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 917. Even Colchester Museum arguesstrongly regarding the historical Arthur: It would be impossible and inconceivable to link him to the Colchester area, or to Essex more generally, pointing out that the connection between the name Camulodunum and Colchester was unknown until the 18th century. It is suggested that another Camulodunum, a former Roman fort, is a likely location of King Arthur's Camelot and that Slack, on the outskirts of Huddersfield in West Yorkshire, is where Arthur would have held court. This is because of the name, and also regarding its strategic location: it is but a few miles from the extreme South-West of Hen Ogledd, also making close to North Wales, and would have been a great flagship point in starving off attacks to the Celtic kingdoms from both the Angles and other attackers. Other places in Britain with names related to Camel have also been suggested, such as Camelford in Cornwall, located down the River Camel from where Geoffrey places Camlann, the scene of Arthur's final battle. The area's connections with Camelot and Camlann are merely speculative. Further north Camelon and its connections with Arthur's O'on have been mentioned in relation to Camelot, but Camelon may be an antiquarian neologism coined after the 15th century, with its earlier name being Carmore or Carmure.
Ask ev'ry person if he's heard the story; And tell it strong and clear if he has not: That once there was a fleeting wisp of glory Called Camelot. Camelot! Camelot!
May God's blessing keep you always May your wishes all come true May you always do for others And let others do for you May you build a ladder to the stars And climb on every rung May you grow up to be righteous May you grow up to be true May you always know the truth See the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous Stand upright and be strong May your hands always be busy May your feet always be swift May you have a strong foundation When the winds of changes shift May your heart always be joyful May your song always be sung
May you stay, Forever young
I miss you, Corto.
Today, The Winsors & TheGrandma have visited Stonehenge. It was the last place where a closer friend of her, CortoMaltese,was last seen. He disappeared there, and in that moment the hero became a legend, and the legend a myth.
Before this visit,the family has studied some English grammar with May/MayNot, and talked about BobDylan and Joan Baez, who are Forever Young,and the Haitian community in London.
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England,
3 km west of Amesbury. It consists of an outer ring of vertical sarsen
standing stones, each around 4.0 m high, 2.1 m wide, and weighing around
25 tons, topped by connecting horizontal lintel stones. Inside is a
ring of smaller bluestones. Inside these are free-standing trilithons,
two bulkier vertical sarsens joined by one lintel. The whole monument,
now ruinous, is aligned towards the sunrise on the summer solstice. The
stones are set within earthworks in the middle of the densest complex of
Neolithic and Bronze Age monuments in England, including several hundred tumuli (burial mounds).
Archaeologists believe that Stonehenge was constructed from around 3000 BC to 2000 BC.
The surrounding circular earth bank and ditch, which constitute the
earliest phase of the monument, have been dated to about 3100 BC.
Radiocarbon dating suggests that the first bluestones were raised
between 2400 and 2200 BC, although they may have been at the site as
early as 3000 BC.
One of the most famous landmarks in the United Kingdom, Stonehenge is regarded as a British cultural icon.
It has been a legally protected scheduled monument since 1882, when
legislation to protect historic monuments was first successfully
introduced in Britain. The site and its surroundings were added to UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites in 1986.
Stonehenge is owned by the Crown and managed by English Heritage; the surrounding land is owned by the National Trust.
Stonehenge could have been a burial ground from its earliest beginnings.
Deposits containing human bone date from as early as 3000 BC, when the
ditch and bank were first dug, and continued for at least another 500
years.
The Oxford English Dictionary cites Ælfric's tenth-century glossary, in which henge-cliff is given the meaning precipice, or stone; thus, the stanenges or Stanheng not far from Salisbury recorded by eleventh-century writers are stones supported in the air.
In 1740, William Stukeley notes: Pendulous rocks are now called henges in Yorkshire... I doubt not, Stonehenge in Saxon signifies the hanging stones. Christopher Chippindale's Stonehenge Complete gives the derivation of the name Stonehenge as coming from the Old English words stān stone, and either hencg hinge (because the stone lintels hinge on the upright stones) or hen(c)ento hang or gallows or instrument of torture (though elsewhere in his book, Chippindale cites the suspended stones etymology).
The henge
portion has given its name to a class of monuments known as henges.
Archaeologists define henges as earthworks consisting of a circular
banked enclosure with an internal ditch. As often happens in
archaeological terminology, this is a holdover from antiquarian use.
Despite being contemporary with true Neolithic henges and stone circles, Stonehenge
is in many ways atypical -for example, at more than 7.3 m tall, its
extant trilithons' lintels, held in place with mortise and tenon joints,
make it unique.
The twelfth-century Historia Regum Britanniae (History of the Kings of Britain), by Geoffrey of Monmouth, includes a fanciful story of how Stonehenge
was brought from Ireland with the help of the wizard Merlin. Geoffrey's
story spread widely, with variations of it appearing in adaptations of
his work, such as Wace's Norman French Roman de Brut, Layamon's Middle English Brut, and the WelshBrut y Brenhinedd.
According to the tale, the stones of Stonehenge
were healing stones, which giants had brought from Africa to Ireland.
They had been raised on Mount Killaraus to form a stone circle, known as
the Giant's Ring or Giant's Round. The fifth-century king Aurelius
Ambrosius wished to build a great memorial to the British Celtic nobles
slain by the Saxons at Salisbury. Merlin advised him to use the Giant's
Ring. The king sent Merlin and Uther Pendragon (King Arthur's father)
with 15,000 men to bring it from Ireland. They defeated an Irish army
led by Gillomanius, but were unable to move the huge stones. With
Merlin's help, they transported the stones to Britain and re-erected
them as they had stood.
Mount
Killaraus may refer to the Hill of Uisneach. Although the tale is
fiction, archaeologist Mike Parker Pearson suggests it may hold a grain of truth, as evidence suggests the Stonehenge bluestones were brought from the Waun Mawn stone circle on the Irish Sea coast of Wales.
Another
legend tells how the invading Saxon king Hengist invited British Celtic
warriors to a feast but treacherously ordered his men to massacre the
guests, killing 420 of them. Hengist erected Stonehenge on the site to show his remorse for the deed.
Today, The Winsors and The Grandma have visited AdaLovelace, the Englishmathematician and writer, and one of themostimportant figures in computing,together with Ramon Llull.
Before visiting Ada, the family has studied some English grammar with the FirstConditional, and they have been talking about science and faith with ManelEsteller, DanaScully and FoxMulder, who are always fighting the future.
Finally, March, 8 is coming, and they have remembered some scientific women, who have been important for human development, and Susana Winsor has introduced an amazing post named Ciencia Radiante.
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815-27 November 1852) was an Englishmathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the AnalyticalEngine.
She
was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond
pure calculation, and published the first algorithm intended to be
carried out by such a machine. As a result, she is sometimes regarded as
the first to recognise the full potential of a computing machine and one of the first computer programmers.
Lovelace was the only legitimate child of poet Lord Byron and his wife Lady Byron. All of Byron's other children were born out of wedlock to other women. Byron separated from his wife a month after Ada was born and left England forever four months later. He commemorated the parting in a poem that begins, Is thy face like thy mother's my fair child! ADA! sole daughter of my house and heart?.
He died of disease in the Greek War of Independence when Ada was eight years old. Her mother remained bitter and promoted Ada's interest in mathematics and logic in an effort to prevent her from developing her father's perceived insanity. Despite this, Ada
remained interested in Byron. Upon her eventual death, she was buried
next to him at her request. Although often ill in her childhood, Ada
pursued her studies assiduously. She married William King in 1835. King
was made Earl of Lovelace in 1838, Ada thereby becoming Countess of Lovelace.
Her educational and social exploits brought her into contact with scientists such as Andrew Crosse, Charles Babbage,
Sir David Brewster, Charles Wheatstone, Michael Faraday and the author
Charles Dickens, contacts which she used to further her education. Ada
described her approach as poetical science and herself as an Analyst & Metaphysician.
When she was a teenager, her mathematical talents led her to a long
working relationship and friendship with fellow British mathematician CharlesBabbage, who is known as the father of computers.She was in particular interested in Babbage's work on the AnalyticalEngine.
Lovelace first met him in June 1833, through their mutual friend, and her private tutor, Mary Somerville. Between 1842 and 1843, Ada
translated an article by Italian military engineer Luigi Menabrea on
the calculating engine, supplementing it with an elaborate set of notes,
simply called Notes. These notes contain what many consider to be the
first computer program -that is, an algorithm designed to be carried out
by a machine.
Other
historians reject this perspective and point out that Babbage's
personal notes from the years 1836/1837 contain the first programs for
the engine. Lovelace's notes are important in the early history
of computers. She also developed a vision of the capability of computers
to go beyond mere calculating or number-crunching, while many others,
including Babbage himself, focused only on those capabilities. Her
mindset of poetical science led her to ask questions about the Analytical Engine -as shown in her notes- examining how individuals and society relate to technology as a collaborative tool.
Lord Byron expected his child to be a glorious boy
and was disappointed when Lady Byron gave birth to a girl. The child
was named after Byron's half-sister, Augusta Leigh, and was called Ada
by Byron himself. On 16 January 1816, at Lord Byron's command, Lady
Byron left for her parents' home at Kirkby Mallory, taking their
five-week-old daughter with her. Although English law at the time
granted full custody of children to the father in cases of separation,
Lord Byron made no attempt to claim his parental rights, but did request
that his sister keep him informed of Ada's welfare.
Lovelace
was often ill, beginning in early childhood. At the age of eight, she
experienced headaches that obscured her vision. In June 1829, she was
paralysed after a bout of measles. She was subjected to continuous bed
rest for nearly a year, something which may have extended her period of
disability. By 1831, she was able to walk with crutches. Despite the
illnesses, she developedher mathematical and technological skills.
Lovelace became close friends with her tutor Mary Somerville, who introducedher to Charles Babbage
in 1833. She had a strong respect and affection for Somerville, and
they corresponded for many years. Other acquaintances included the
scientists Andrew Crosse, Sir David Brewster, Charles Wheatstone,
Michael Faraday and the author Charles Dickens. She was presented at
Court at the age of seventeen and became a popular belle of the season in part because of her brilliant mind.
On 8 July 1835, she married William, 8thBaron King,
becoming Lady King. They had three children: Byron; Anne Isabella; and
Ralph Gordon. Immediately after the birth of Annabella, Lady King
experienced a tedious and suffering illness, which took months to cure. Ada was a descendant of the extinct Barons Lovelace and in 1838, her husband was made Earl of Lovelace and Viscount Ockham, meaning Ada became the Countess of Lovelace.
Throughout
her illnesses, she continued her education. Her mother's obsession with
rooting out any of the insanity of which she accused Byron was one of
the reasons that Ada was taught mathematics from an early age.
She was privately schooled in mathematics and science by William Frend,
William King, and Mary Somerville, the noted 19th-century researcher and
scientific author. One of her later tutors was the mathematician and
logician Augustus De Morgan. From 1832, when she was seventeen, her
mathematical abilities began to emerge, and her interest in mathematics
dominated the majority of her adult life.
Lovelace believed that intuition and imagination were critical to effectively applying mathematical and scientific concepts. She valued metaphysics as much as mathematics, viewing both as tools for exploring the unseen worlds around us.
Lovelace
died at the age of 36 -the same age at which her father had died- on 27
November 1852, from uterine cancer probably exacerbated by bloodletting
by her physicians.
Throughout her life, Lovelace was strongly interested in scientific developments and fads of the day, including phrenology and mesmerism.
After her work with Babbage, Lovelace continued to work on other projects. In 1844 she commented to a friend Woronzow Greig about her desire to create a mathematical model for how the brain gives rise to thoughts and nerves to feelings -a calculus of the nervous system.
Lovelace first met Charles Babbage in June 1833, through their mutual friend Mary Somerville.
In 1840, Babbage was invited to give a seminar at the University of Turin about his Analytical Engine.
Luigi Menabrea, a young Italian engineer and the future Prime Minister
of Italy, transcribed Babbage's lecture into French, and this transcript
was subsequently published in the Bibliothèque universelle de Genève in
October 1842. Babbage's friend Charles Wheatstone commissioned AdaLovelace to translate Menabrea's paper into English. She then augmented the paper with notes, which were added to the translation.
Ada Lovelace
spent the better part of a year doing this, assisted with input from
Babbage. These notes, which are more extensive than Menabrea's paper,
were then published in the September 1843 edition of Taylor's Scientific
Memoirs under the initialism AAL.
Ada Lovelace's notes were labelled alphabetically from A to G. In note G, she describes an algorithm for the Analytical Engine to compute Bernoulli numbers. It is considered to be the first published algorithm ever specifically tailored for implementation on a computer, and Ada Lovelace
has often been cited as the first computer programmer for this reason.
The engine was never completed so her program was never tested.
In 1953, more than a century after her death, Ada Lovelace's notes on Babbage's Analytical Engine were republished as an appendix to B.V. Bowden's Faster than Thought: A Symposium on Digital Computing Machines.
The engine has now been recognised as an early model for a computerand her notes as a description of a computer and software.
Doron Swade, a specialist on history of computing known for his work on Babbage, analysed four claims about Lovelace during a lecture on Babbage's analytical engine:
-She was a mathematical genius.
-She made an influential contribution to the analytical engine.
Today, The Winsors and The Grandma have met one of the most important scientist of all time, Charles Darwin,who contributed to the science of evolution.
Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by Charles Darwin and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that increase the individual's ability to compete, survive, and reproduce.
Darwin's
theory of evolutionary selection holds that variation within species
occurs randomly and that the survival or extinction of each organism is
determined by that organism's ability to adapt to its environment. He
set these theories forth in his book The Origin of Species(1859).
Before the visit, the family has studied some English grammar with the Future Simple (Will/Won't), and they have talked about Tarot and the art of divination and cartomancy. They have also talked about how to build the future of countries and communities with the example of France, and two French spoken singers -EdithPiaf and Céline Dion.
Finally, they have talked about the figure of the sibyl from the ancient Greece to our days with the examples of The Song of Sibyl, the liturgical drama and a Gregorian chant, the lyrics of which comprise a prophecy describing the Apocalypse, that was declared a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO, and the character of Professor Sybill Trewlaney in Harry Potter's saga.
Charles Robert Darwin (12 February 1809-19 April 1882) was an Englishnaturalist, geologist and biologist, bestknown for his contributions to the science of evolution.
His proposition that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors is now widely accepted, and considered a foundational concept in science.
In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.
Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and he was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey.
Darwin published his theory of evolution with compelling evidence in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species.
By the 1870s, the scientific community and a majority of the educated
public had accepted evolution as a fact. However, many favoured
competing explanations which gave only a minor role to natural
selection, and it was not until the emergence of the modern evolutionary
synthesis from the 1930s to the 1950s that a broad consensus developed
in which natural selection was the basic mechanism of evolution.
Darwin's scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sciences, explaining the diversity of life.
Darwin's
early interest in nature led him to neglect his medical education at
the University of Edinburgh; instead, he helped to investigate marine
invertebrates. Studies at the University of Cambridge (Christ's College)
encouraged his passion for natural science.
His five-year voyage on HMS Beagle established him as an eminent geologist whose observations and theories supported Charles Lyell's conception of gradual geological change, and publication of his journal of the voyage made him famous as a popular author.
Puzzled by the geographical distribution of wildlife and fossils he collected on the voyage, Darwin begandetailed investigations, and in 1838 conceived his theory of natural selection. Although he discussed his
ideas with several naturalists, he needed time for extensive research
and his geological work had priority.
He was writing up his theory in 1858 when Alfred Russel Wallace sent him an essay that described the same idea, prompting immediate joint publication of both of their theories.
Darwin's
work established evolutionary descent with modification as the dominant
scientific explanation of diversification in nature. In 1871 he
examined human evolution and sexual selection in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, followed by The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872).
His research on plants was published in a series of books, and in his final book, The Formation of Vegetable Mould, through the Actions of Worms (1881), he examined earthworms and their effect on soil.
The publication of Darwin's theory brought into the open Charles Darwin'stheory of evolution through natural selection, the culmination of more than twenty years of work.
Thoughts
on the possibility of transmutation of species which he recorded in
1836 towards the end of his five-year voyage on the Beagle were followed on his return by findings and work which led him to conceive of his theory in September 1838.
He gave priority to his career as a geologist whose observations and theories supported Charles Lyell's
uniformitarian ideas, and to publication of the findings from the
voyage as well as his journal of the voyage, but he discussed his
evolutionary ideas with several naturalists and carried out extensive
research on his hobby of evolutionary work.
He was writing up his theory in 1858 when he received an essay from AlfredRussel Wallace who was in Borneo, describing Wallace's own theory of
natural selection, prompting immediate joint publication of extracts
from Darwin's 1844 essay together with Wallace's paper as On the
Tendency of Species to form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of
Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection in a presentation to
the Linnaean Society on 1 July 1858.
This attracted little notice, but spurred Darwin to write an abstract of his work which was published in 1859 as his book On the Origin of Species.
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype.
It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations.
Charles Darwin popularised the term natural selection, contrasting it with artificial selection, which in his view is intentional, whereas natural selection
is not. Variation exists within all populations of organisms. This
occurs partly because random mutations arise in the genome of an
individual organism, and their offspring can inherit such mutations.
Throughout the lives of the individuals, their genomes interact with
their environments to cause variations in traits.
The environment of a genome
includes the molecular biology in the cell, other cells, other
individuals, populations, species, as well as the abiotic environment.
Because individuals with certain variants of the trait tend to survive
and reproduce more than individuals with other less successful variants,
the population evolves. Other factors affecting reproductive success
include sexual selection, now often included in natural selection, and
fecundity selection.
Natural selection acts on the phenotype,
the characteristics of the organism which actually interact with the
environment, but the genetic (heritable) basis of any phenotype that
gives that phenotype a reproductive advantage may become more common in a
population.
Over
time, this process can result in populations that specialise for
particular ecological niches (microevolution) and may eventually result
in speciation (the emergence of new species, macroevolution). In other
words, natural selection is a key process in the evolution of a
population.
Natural selection is a cornerstone of modern biology. The concept, published by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in a joint presentation of papers in 1858, was elaborated in Darwin's influential 1859 book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.
He
described natural selection as analogous to artificial selection, a
process by which animals and plants with traits considered desirable by
human breeders are systematically favoured for reproduction.
The concept of natural selection originally developed in the absence of a valid theory of heredity; at the time of Darwin's writing, science had yet to develop modern theories of genetics.
The union of traditional Darwinian evolution
with subsequent discoveries in classical genetics formed the modern
synthesis of the mid-20th century. The addition of molecular genetics
has led to evolutionary developmental biology, which explains evolution at the molecular level.
While genotypes can slowly change by random genetic drift, natural
selection remains the primary explanation for adaptive evolution.
Today, The Grandma has visited an old friend, Stephen Hawking, the Englishdirector of research at the Centre for
Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge
Stephen William Hawking (8 January 1942-14 March 2018) was an Englishtheoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author who was director of research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge. Between 1979 and 2009, he was the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge, widely viewed as one of the most prestigious academic posts in the world.
Hawking was born on 8 January 1942 in Oxford
to Frank and Isobel Eileen Hawking (née Walker). Hawking's mother was
born into a family of doctors in Glasgow, Scotland.
In October 1959, at the age of 17, he began his university education at University College, Oxford, where he received a first-class BA degree in physics. In October 1962, he began his graduate work at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, where, in March 1966, he obtained his PhD in applied mathematics and theoretical physics, specialising in general relativity and cosmology.
In 1963, at age 21, Hawking was diagnosed with a rare early-onset,
slow-progressing form of motor neurone disease (MND; also known as
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Lou Gehrig's disease), a fatal
neurodegenerative disease that affects the motor neurones in the brain
and spinal cord, which gradually paralysed him over decades.
After the loss of his speech, he communicated through a speech-generating device, initially through use of a handheld switch, and eventually by using a single cheek muscle.
Hawking's scientific works included a collaboration with Roger Penrose on gravitational singularity theorems in the framework of general relativity, and the theoretical prediction that black holes emit radiation, often called Hawking radiation. Initially, Hawking radiation was controversial. By the late 1970s, and following the publication of further research, the discovery was widely accepted as a major breakthrough in theoretical physics.
Hawkingwas the first to set out a theory of cosmology explained by a union of the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.
Hawking was a vigorous supporter of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. He also introduced the notion of a micro black hole.
Hawking achieved commercial success with several works of popular science in which he discussed his theories and cosmology in general. His book A Brief History of Time appeared on the Sunday Times bestseller list for a record-breaking 237 weeks.
Hawking was a Fellow of the Royal Society, a lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.
In late 2006, Hawking revealed in a BBC interview that one of his greatest unfulfilled desires was to travel to space. On hearing this, Richard Branson offered a free flight into space with Virgin Galactic, which Hawking immediately accepted. Besides personal ambition, he was motivated by the desire to increase public interest in spaceflight and to show the potential of people with disabilities.
On 26 April 2007, Hawking flew aboard a specially-modified Boeing 727-200 jet operated by Zero-G Corp off the coast of Florida to experience weightlessness. Fears that the manoeuvres would cause him undue discomfort proved incorrect, and the flight was extended to eight parabolic arcs.
It was described as a successful test to see if he could withstand the g-forces involved in space flight. At the time, the date of Hawking's trip to space was projected to be as early as 2009, but commercial flights to space did not commence before his death.
Hawking died at his home in Cambridge on 14 March 2018, at the age of 76.
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