This slow learner, WHO COULDN'T READ UNTIL HE WAS 8; enabled the LIGHTHOUSE TO GUIDE SHIPS AT LONGER DISTANCES!!!

Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827), was a French engineer and physicist who contributed significantly to the establishment of the theory of wave optics. Fresnel studied the behaviour of light both theoretically and experimentally. He is perhaps best known as the inventor of the Fresnel lens, first adopted inlighthouses while he was a French commissioner of lighthouses, and found in many applications today. His Fresnel equations on waves and reflectivity also form the basis for many applications in computer graphics today - for instance, the rendering of water.

Fresnel was the son of an architect, born at Broglie (Eure). His early progress in learning was slow, and he still could not read when he was eight years old. At thirteen he entered the École Centrale in Caen, and at sixteen and a half the École Polytechnique, where he acquitted himself with distinction. From there he went to the École des Ponts et Chaussées. He served as an engineer successively in the departments of Vendée, Drôme and Ille-et-Vilaine; but having supported the Bourbons in 1814 he lost his appointment on Napoleon's return to power.

In 1815, on the second restoration of the monarchy, he obtained a post as engineer in Paris, where he spent much of his life from that time onwards. He appears to have begun his research in optics around 1814, when he prepared a paper on the aberration of light, although it was never published. In 1818 he wrote a memoir on diffraction, for which he received the prize of the Académie des Sciences at Paris in the ensuing year. He was the first to construct a special type of lens, now called a Fresnel lens, as a substitute for mirrors in lighthouses. 

In 1819, he was nominated to be a commissioner of lighthouses. In 1823 he was unanimously elected a member of the academy, and in 1825 he became a member of the Royal Society of London. In 1827, the time of his last illness, the Royal Society of London awarded him the Rumford Medal. Fresnel died of tuberculosis at Ville-d'Avray, near Paris. He received only scant public recognition during his lifetime for his labours in the cause of optical science. Some of his papers were not printed by the Académie des Sciences until many years after his death. 

But as he wrote to Young in 1824: in himself "that sensibility, or that vanity, which people call love of glory" had been blunted. "All the compliments," he says, "that I have received from Arago, Laplace and Biot never gave me so much pleasure as the discovery of a theoretic truth, or the confirmation of a calculation by experiment". His name is one of the 72 names inscribed on the Eiffel Tower.

His discoveries and mathematical deductions, building on experimental work by Thomas Young, extended the wave theory of light to a large class of optical phenomena, especially, to thedouble-refraction property of Iceland Spar, or calcite. In 1817, Young had proposed a small transverse component to light, while yet retaining a far larger longitudinal component. 

A Fresnel lens is a type of compact lens originally developed by French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel for lighthouses. The design allows the construction of lenses of large aperture and short focal length without the mass and volume of material that would be required by a lens of conventional design. A Fresnel lens can be made much thinner than a comparable conventional lens, in some cases taking the form of a flat sheet. A Fresnel lens can capture more oblique light from a light source, thus allowing the light from a lighthouse equipped with one to be visible over greater distances.

Links:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustin-Jean_Fresnel, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fresnel_lens

The MENTOR of the FATHER OF THE NATION !!!

Gopal Krishna Gokhale (9 May 1866 – 19 February 1915) was one of the founding social and political leaders during the Indian Independence Movement against the British Empire in India. Gokhale was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and founder of the Servants of India Society. Through the Society as well as the Congress and other legislative bodies he served in, Gokhale promoted not only primarily independence from the British Empire but also social reform. To achieve his goals, Gokhale followed two overarching principles: non-violence and reform within existing government institutions.

He was born on May 9, 1866 in Kothluk village of Guhagar taluka in Ratnagiri district, in present-day Maharashtra (then part of the Bombay Presidency) in a Chitpavan Brahmin Family. Despite being relatively poor, his family ensured that Gokhale received an English education, which would place Gokhale in a position to obtain employment as a clerk or minor official in the British Raj. Being one of the first generations of Indians to receive a university education, Gokhale graduated from Elphinstone College in 1884. Gokhale’s education tremendously influenced the course of his future career – in addition to learning English, he was exposed to western political thought and became a great admirer of theorists such as John Stuart Mill and Edmund Burke. 

In 1905, when Gokhale was elected president of the Indian National Congress and was at the height of his political power, he founded the Servants of India Society to specifically further one of the causes dearest to his heart: the expansion of Indian education. For Gokhale, true political change in India would only be possible when a new generation of Indians became educated as to their civil and patriotic duty to their country and to each other. Believing existing educational institutions and the Indian Civil Service did not do enough to provide Indians with opportunities to gain this political education, Gokhale hoped the Servants of India Society would fill this need. I

n his preamble to the SIS’s constitution, Gokhale wrote that “The Servants of India Society will train men prepared to devote their lives to the cause of country in a religious spirit, and will seek to promote, by all constitutional means, the national interests of the Indian people.” 

The Society took up the cause of promoting Indian education in earnest, and among its many projects organized mobile libraries, founded schools, and provided night classes for factory workers. He was elected to the Council of India of Governor-General of India on 22 May 1903 as non-officiating member representing Bombay Province. He later served to Imperial Legislative Council after its expansion in 1909. He there obtained a reputation as extremely knowledgeable and contributed significantly to the annual budget debates. Gokhale developed so great a reputation among the British that he was invited to London to meet with secretary of state Lord John Morley, with whom he established a rapport.

 Gokhale would help during his visit to shape the Morley-Minto Reforms introduced in 1909. Gokhale was appointed a CIE (Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire) in the 1904 New Year's Honours List, a formal recognition by the Empire of his service.

Gokhale was famously a mentor to Mahatma Gandhi in his formative years. In 1912, Gokhale visited South Africa at Gandhi's invitation. As a young barrister, Gandhi returned from his struggles against the Empire in South Africa and received personal guidance from Gokhale, including a knowledge and understanding of India and the issues confronting common Indians. By 1920, Gandhi emerged as the leader of the Indian Independence Movement. In his autobiography, Gandhi calls Gokhale his mentor and guide. 

Gandhi also recognised Gokhale as an admirable leader and master politician, describing him as pure as crystal, gentle as a lamb, brave as a lion and chivalrous to a fault and the most perfect man in the political field. Gokhale was also the role model and mentor of Mohammed Ali Jinnah, the future founder of Pakistan, who in 1912, aspired to become the "Muslim Gokhale". Even the Aga Khan ( the Spiritual Head of the Islamic sect of Ismaili Khojas & grandfather of the present Aga Khan) has stated in his autobiography that Gokhale's influence on his thinking was probably considerable.

He continued to be involved in the Servants of India Society, the Congress, and the Legislative Council while constantly advocating the advancement of Indian education. All these stresses took their toll, however, and Gokhale died on Feb 19, 1915 at an early age of forty-nine. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, his lifelong political opponent, said at his funeral:"This diamond of India, this jewel of Maharashtra, this prince of workers is taking eternal rest on funeral ground. Look at him and try to emulate him". 

Through his close relationship with the highest levels of British imperial government, Gokhale forced India's colonial masters to recognize the capabilities of a new generation of educated Indians and to include them more than ever before in the governing process. Gokhale’s firm belief in the need for universal education deeply inspired the next great man on the Indian political stage, Mohandas K. Gandhi; his faith in western political institutions though rejected by Gandhi, was adopted by an independent India in 1950.

The RED CROSS AND RED CRESCENT DAY and its HUMBLING FOUNDER!!!

World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day is an annual celebration of the principles of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement (ICRC). World Red Cross Red Crescent Day is celebrated on 8 May each year. This date is the anniversary of the birth of Henry Dunant, the founder of ICRC. Jean Henri Dunant (8 May 1828 – 30 October 1910), also known as Henry Dunant, was a Swissbusinessman and social activist. During a business trip in 1859, he was witness to the aftermath of the Battle of Solferino in modern-day Italy. 

He recorded his memories and experiences in the book "A Memory of Solferino" which inspired the creation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in 1863. The 1864 Geneva Convention was based on Dunant's ideas. In 1901 he received the first Nobel Peace Prizetogether with Frédéric Passy.

Dunant's businesses in Algeria had suffered, partially because of his devotion to his humanistic ideals. He was forced to declare bankruptcy and was condemned by the Geneva Trade Court on 17 August 1868 for deceptive practices in the bankruptcies. The social outcry in Geneva, a city deeply rooted in Calvinist traditions, also led to calls for him to separate himself from the International Committee. On 25 August 1868, he resigned as Secretary and, on 8 September, he was fully removed from the Committee.

In February 1868, he was also expelled from the YMCA. In March 1867, he left his home city Geneva and would not return for the rest of his life. The gold medal prize of Sciences Morales at the Paris World's Fair did not go to Dunant as originally planned but to Moynier, Dufour, and Dunant together so that the prize money would only go to the Committee as a whole.

Dunant moved to Paris, where he lived in meager conditions. However, he continued to pursue his humanitarian ideas and plans. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), he founded the Common Relief Society and the Common Alliance for Order and Civilization. Later he worked for the creation of a world library, an idea which had echoes in future projects such as UNESCO. In his continued pursuit and advocacy of his ideas, he further neglected his personal situation and income, falling further in debt and being shunned by his acquaintances. 

Despite being appointed an honorary member of the national Red Cross societies of Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden, Prussia and Spain, he was nearly forgotten in the official discourse of the Red Cross Movement, even as it was rapidly expanding to new countries. He lived in poverty, moving to various places between 1874 and 1886, including Stuttgart, Rome,Corfu, Basel, and Karlsruhe.

Dunant was born in Geneva, Switzerland, the first son of businessman Jean-Jacques Dunant and Antoinette Dunant-Colladon. His family was devoutly Calvinist and had significant influence in Geneva society. His parents stressed the value of social work, and his father was active helping orphans and parolees, while his mother worked with the sick and poor. His father worked in a prison and an orphanage. In 1849, at age 21, Dunant was forced to leave the Collège Calvin due to poor grades, and he began an apprenticeship with the money-changing firm Lullin et Sautter. After its successful conclusion, he remained as an employee of the bank.

Dunant arrived in Solferino on the evening of 24 June 1859, on the same day a battle between the two sides had occurred nearby. Twenty-three thousand wounded, dying and dead remained on the battlefield, and there appeared to be little attempt to provide care. Shocked, Dunant himself took the initiative to organize the civilian population, especially the women and girls, to provide assistance to the injured and sick soldiers. 

They lacked sufficient materials and supplies, and Dunant himself organized the purchase of needed materials and helped erect makeshift hospitals. He convinced the population to service the wounded without regard to their side in the conflict as per the slogan "Tutti fratelli" (All are brothers) coined by the women of nearby city Castiglione delle Stiviere. He also succeeded in gaining the release of Austrian doctors captured by the French.

After returning to Geneva early in July, Dunant decided to write a book about his experiences, which he titled Un Souvenir de Solferino (A Memory of Solferino). It was published in 1862 in an edition of 1,600 copies and was printed at Dunant's own expense. Within the book, he described the battle, its costs, and the chaotic circumstances afterwards. He also developed the idea that in the future a neutral organization should exist to provide care to wounded soldiers. He distributed the book to many leading political and military figures in Europe.

Dunant also began to travel through Europe to promote his ideas. His book was largely positively received, and the President of the Geneva Society for Public Welfare, jurist Gustave Moynier, made the book and its suggestions the topic of the 9 February 1863 meeting of the organization. Dunant's recommendations were examined and positively assessed by the members. 

They created a five-person Committee to further pursue the possibility of their implementation and made Dunant one of the members. The others were Moynier, theSwiss army general Henri Dufour, and doctors Louis Appia and Théodore Maunoir. Their first meeting on 17 February 1863 is now considered the founding date of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

In October 1863, 14 states took part in a meeting in Geneva organized by the committee to discuss the improvement of care for wounded soldiers. Dunant himself, however, was only a protocol leader because of Moynier's efforts to diminish his role. A year later on 22 August 1864, a diplomatic conference organized by the Swiss Parliament led to the signing of the First Geneva Convention by 12 states. Dunant, again, was only in charge of organizing accommodation for the attendees.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Dunant

This LITERARY GENIUS; who loathed formal schooling, learnt all he did from the outside world!!!

It knocks at the doors of the mind. If any boy is asked to give an account of what is awakened in him by such knocking, he will probably say something silly. For what happens within is much bigger than what comes out in words. Those who pin their faith on university examinations as the test of education take no account of this.

Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941), sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. Tagore introduced new prose and verse forms and the use of colloquial language into Bengali literature, thereby freeing it from traditional models based on classical Sanskrit. He was highly influential in introducing the best of Indian culture to the West and vice versa, and he is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of modern South Asia.

Tagore wrote poetry as an eight-year-old. At age sixteen, he released his first substantial poems under the pseudonym Bhānusiṃha ("Sun Lion"), which were seized upon by literary authorities as long-lost classics. He graduated to his first short stories and dramas—and the aegis of his birth name—by 1877. As a humanist, universalist internationalist, and strident nationalist he denounced the Raj and advocated independence from Britain. As an exponent of the Bengal Renaissance, he advanced a vast canon that comprised paintings, sketches and doodles, hundreds of texts, and some two thousand songs; his legacy endures also in the institution he founded, Visva-Bharati University.

Gitanjali (Song Offerings), Gora (Fair-Faced) and Ghare-Baire (The Home and the World) are his best-known works, and his verse, short stories, and novels were acclaimed—or panned—for their lyricism, colloquialism, naturalism, and unnatural contemplation. His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems:India's Jana Gana Mana and Bangladesh's Amar Shonar Bangla.

The youngest of thirteen surviving children, Tagore was born in the Jorasanko mansion in Calcutta, India to parents Debendranath Tagore. The original name of the Tagore family was Banerjee. Being Brahmins, their ancestors were referred to as 'Thakurmashai' or 'Holy Sir'. During the British rule, this name stuck and they began to be recognised as Thakur and eventually the family name got anglicised to Tagore.

"Rabi" was raised mostly by servants; his mother had died in his early childhood and his father travelled widely. His home hosted the publication of literary magazines; theatre and recitals of both Bengali and Western classical music featured there regularly, as the Jorasanko Tagores were the center of a large and art-loving social group.

Tagore largely avoided classroom schooling and preferred to roam the manor or nearby Bolpur and Panihati, idylls which the family visited. His brother Hemendranath tutored and physically conditioned him—by having him swim the Ganges or trek through hills, by gymnastics, and by practising judo and wrestling. He learned drawing, anatomy, geography and history, literature, mathematics, Sanskrit, and English—his least favourite subject. Tagore loathed formal education—his scholarly travails at the local Presidency College spanned a single day. Years later he held that proper teaching does not explain things; proper teaching stokes curiosity.

He debuted the short-story genre in Bengali with "Bhikharini" ("The Beggar Woman"). Because Debendranath wanted his son to become a barrister, Tagore enrolled at a public school in Brighton, East Sussex, England in 1878. He briefly read law at University College London, but again left school. He opted instead for independent study of Shakespeare, Religio Medici, Coriolanus, and Antony and Cleopatra. Lively English, Irish, and Scottish folk tunes impressed Tagore, whose own tradition of Nidhubabu-authored kirtans and tappas and Brahmo hymnody was subdued. In 1880 he returned to Bengal degree-less, resolving to reconcile European novelty with Brahmo traditions, taking the best from each. In 1883 he married Mrinalini Devi, born Bhabatarini, 1873–1902.

In 1890, back in India he started managind estaes of Shelaidaha; He collected mostly token rents and blessed villagers who in turn honoured him with banquets—occasionally of dried rice and sour milk. He met Gagan Harkara, through whom he became familiar with Baul Lalon Shah, whose folk songs greatly influenced Tagore. Tagore worked to popularise Lalon's songs. In these years he wrote more than half the stories of the three-volume, 84-story Galpaguchchha. Its ironic and grave tales examined the voluptuous poverty of an idealised rural Bengal.

In 1915, the British Crown granted Tagore a knighthood. He renounced it after the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre. In 1921, Tagore and agricultural economist Leonard Elmhirst set up the "Institute for Rural Reconstruction", later renamed Shriniketan or "Abode of Welfare", in Surul, a village near the ashram.He sought aid from donors, officials, and scholars worldwide to "free villages from the shackles of helplessness and ignorance" by "vitalising knowledge". In the early 1930s he targeted ambient "abnormal caste consciousness" and untouchability. He lectured against these, he penned Dalit heroes for his poems and his dramas, and he campaigned—successfully—to open Guruvayoor Temple to Dalits.

Link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabindranath_Tagore

Skating your heart out on the ICE in any place was made possible this day!!!

The Glaciarium was the world's first mechanically frozen ice rink. An item in the 8 June 1844 issue of Littell's Living Age headed "The Glaciarium" reports that "This establishment, which has been removed to Grafton street East' Tottenham-court-road,was opened on Monday afternoon. The area of artificial ice is extremely convenient for such as may be desirous of engaging in the graceful and manly pastime of skating". A later rink was opened by John Gamgee in a tent in a small building just off the Kings Road in Chelsea, London, on 7 January 1876. In March, it moved to a permanent venue at 379 Kings Road, where a rink measuring 40 by 24 feet was established.

The rink was based on a concrete surface, with layers of earth, cow hair and timber planks. Atop these were laid oval copper pipes carrying a solution of glycerine with ether, nitrogen peroxide and water. The pipes were covered by water and the solution was pumped through, freezing the water into ice. Gamgee had discovered the process while attempting to develop a method to freeze meat for import from Australia and New Zealand, and had patented it as early as 1870.

He installed anorchestra gallery, which could also be used by spectators, and decorated the walls with views of the Swiss Alps. The rink initially proved a success, and Gamgee opened two further rinks later in the year: at Rusholme in Manchester and the "Floating Glaciarium" at Charing Cross in London, this last significantly larger at 115 by 25 feet. However, the process was expensive, and mists rising from the ice deterred customers, forcing Gamgee to close the Glaciarium by the end of the year, and all his rinks had shut by mid-1878. However, the Southport Glaciarium opened in 1879, using Gamgee's method.

An ice rink (or ice skating rink) is a frozen body of water and/or hardened chemicals where people can ice skate or play winter sports. Rink, a Scottish word meaning 'course', was used as the name of a place where curling was played. The name has been retained for the construction of ice areas for other sports and uses.

Besides recreational ice skating, some of its uses include ice hockey, bandy, rink bandy, ringette, speed skating, figure skating, ice stock sport and curling as well as exhibitions, contests and ice shows. There are two types of rinks in prevalent use today: natural, where freezing occurs from cold ambient temperatures, and artificial (or mechanically-frozen), where a coolant produces cold temperatures in the surface below the water, causing the water to freeze. There are also synthetic ice rinks where skating surfaces are made out of plastics.

Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaciarium, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_rink