Hydraulics is a technology and applied science using engineering, chemistry, and other sciences involving the mechanical properties and use of liquids. At a very basic level, hydraulics is the liquid counterpart of pneumatics, which concerns gases. Fluid mechanics provides the theoretical foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on applied engineering using the properties of fluids. In its fluid power applications, hydraulics is used for the generation, control, and transmission of power by the use of pressurized liquids. Hydraulic topics range through some parts of science and most of engineering modules, and cover concepts such as pipe flow, dam design, fluidics and fluid control circuitry. The principles of hydraulics are in use naturally in the human body within the vascular system and erectile tissue.
An armillary sphere is a model of objects in the sky, consisting of a spherical framework of rings, centered on Earth or the Sun, that represent lines of celestial longitude and latitude and other astronomically important features, such as the ecliptic. As such, it differs from a celestial globe, which is a smooth sphere whose principal purpose is to map the constellations. It was invented separately, in ancient China possibly as early as the 4th century BC and ancient Greece during the 3rd century BC, with later uses in the Islamic world and Medieval Europe.
Santa Maria Novella is a church in Florence, Italy, situated opposite, and lending its name to, the city's main railway station. Chronologically, it is the first great basilica in Florence, and is the city's principal Dominican church.
Yi Xing, born Zhang Sui, was a Chinese astronomer, Buddhist monk, inventor, mathematician, mechanical engineer, and philosopher during the Tang dynasty. His astronomical celestial globe featured a liquid-driven escapement, the first in a long tradition of Chinese astronomical clockworks.
Astronomy in China has a long history stretching from the Shang dynasty, being refined over a period of more than 3,000 years. The ancient Chinese people have identified stars from 1300 BCE, as Chinese star names later categorized in the twenty-eight mansions have been found on oracle bones unearthed at Anyang, dating back to the mid-Shang dynasty. The core of the "mansion" system also took shape around this period, by the time of King Wu Ding.
Zhang Sixun was a Chinese astronomer and mechanical engineer from Bazhong, Sichuan during the early Song dynasty. He is credited with creating an armillary sphere for his astronomical clock tower that employed the use of liquid mercury. The liquid mercury filled scoops of the waterwheel would rotate and thus provide the effect of an escapement mechanism in clockworks and allow the astronomical armillary sphere to rotate as needed.
IgnazioDanti, O.P., born Pellegrino Rainaldi Danti, was an Italian Roman Catholic prelate, mathematician, astronomer, and cosmographer, who served as Bishop of Alatri (1583–1586).
Museo Galileo is located in Florence, Italy, in Piazza dei Giudici, along the River Arno and close to the Uffizi Gallery. The museum, dedicated to astronomer and scientist Galileo Galilei, is housed in Palazzo Castellani, an 11th-century building which was then known as the Castello d'Altafronte.
An astrarium, also called a planetarium, is a medieval astronomical clock made in the 14th century by Italian engineer and astronomer Giovanni Dondi dell'Orologio. The Astrarium was modeled after the solar system and, in addition to counting time and representing calendar dates and holidays, showed how the planets moved around the celestial sphere in one timepiece. This was its main task, in comparison with the astronomical clock, the main task of which is the actual reading of time. A complex mechanism, it combined the functions of a modern planetarium, clock, and calendar into a singular constructive device. Devices that perform this function were known to have been created prior to the design of Dondi, though relatively little is known about them. It is occasionally erroneously claimed by the details of some sources that the Astrarium was the first mechanical device showing the movements of the planets.
Anton Domenico Gabbiani was an Italian painter and active in a late Baroque style. He worked primarily in Florence for the Medici court.
Quinta da Regaleira is a quinta located near the historic centre of Sintra, Portugal. It is classified as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO within the "Cultural Landscape of Sintra". Along with the other palaces in the area such as the Quinta do Relógio, Pena, Monserrate and Seteais palaces, it is considered one of the principal tourist attractions of Sintra.
Villa il Gioiello is a villa in Florence, central Italy, famous for being one of the residences of Galileo Galilei, which he lived in from 1631 until his death in 1642. It is also known as Villa Galileo.
The grounds of the Palais des Nations contain many fine objects donated by member states of the United Nations, private sponsors and artists. The Celestial Sphere in the Ariana Park of the Palais des Nations is the best-known of these. The huge - over four meter diameter - Celestial Sphere is the chef d'oeuvre of the American sculptor Paul Manship (1885–1966). It was donated in 1939 by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation to what was then the League of Nations building. Known also as the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Sphere of the Palais des Nations it is today a symbol of Geneva International and of Geneva as the centre of dialogue and peace.
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei, commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei or simply Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. He was born in the city of Pisa, then part of the Duchy of Florence. Galileo has been called the father of observational astronomy, modern-era classical physics, the scientific method, and modern science.
Christoph Schissler was a German builder of high precision scientific instruments.
Girolamo della Volpaia was an Italian maker of clocks and scientific instruments from Volpaia.
Antonio Santucci (?–1613) was an Italian astronomer, cosmographer, and scientific instrument maker.
Charles Whitwell was an English scientific instrument maker.
Gualterus Arsenius, also known as Gualterius Arsenius, Gautier Arsens, and Walter Arsenius, was a Flemish scientific instrument maker.
The Reale Museo di Fisica e Storia Naturale was an Italian museum founded on 22 February 1775 in Florence that survived until 1878, when its collections were split up in various Florentine museums.
