Misplaced Pages

#129870

89-537: A major goal of USArray was to collect detailed seismic images of the North American lithosphere . The data collected from USArray was integrated with geologic observations made on the Earth's surface to help determine the geologic history of North America, as well as to better understand that geologic processes that are at work today. USArray consists of four "observatories": The Transportable Array (TA)

178-434: A deer moved into a colder climate, it became a reindeer . He wrote that many species were hybrids of other species, for example, armadillos from a combination of turtles and porcupines . He also advocated the theory of spontaneous generation . Because of such hypotheses, some historians have held that Kircher was a proto-evolutionist. Kircher took a modern approach to the study of diseases as early as 1646 by using

267-426: A microscope to investigate the blood of plague victims. In his Scrutinium Pestis of 1658, he observed the presence of "little worms" or " animalcules " in the blood and concluded that the disease was caused by microorganisms . That was correct, although it is likely that what he saw were red or white blood cells and not the plague agent, Yersinia pestis . He also proposed hygienic measures to prevent

356-458: A microscope , Kircher was ahead of his time in proposing that the plague was caused by an infectious microorganism and in suggesting effective measures to prevent its spread. Kircher also displayed a keen interest in technology and mechanical inventions; inventions attributed to him include a magnetic clock, various automatons and the first megaphone . The invention of the magic lantern has been misattributed to Kircher, although he conducted

445-454: A missionary to that country. In 1667 he published a treatise whose full title was China monumentis, qua sacris qua profanis, nec non variis naturae & artis spectaculis, aliarumque rerum memorabilium argumentis illustrata , and which is commonly known simply as China Illustrata , i.e. "China Illustrated". It was a work of encyclopedic breadth, combining material of unequal quality, from accurate cartography to mythical elements, such as

534-458: A wunderkammer or cabinet of curiosities. A resurgence of interest in Kircher has occurred within the scholarly community in recent decades. Kircher claimed to have deciphered the hieroglyphic writing of the ancient Egyptian language , but most of his assumptions and translations in the field turned out to be wrong. He did, however, correctly establish the link between the ancient Egyptian and

623-528: A field of serious study. Kircher's interest in Egyptology began in 1628 when he became intrigued by a collection of hieroglyphs in the library at Speyer . He learned Coptic in 1633 and published its first grammar in 1636, the Prodromus coptus sive aegyptiacus . Kircher then broke with Horapollon's interpretation of hieroglyphs with his Lingua aegyptiaca restituta . Kircher argued that Coptic preserved

712-519: A function of time, created by a seismograph is called a seismogram . A seismologist is a scientist works in basic or applied seismology. Scholarly interest in earthquakes can be traced back to antiquity. Early speculations on the natural causes of earthquakes were included in the writings of Thales of Miletus ( c.  585 BCE ), Anaximenes of Miletus ( c.  550 BCE ), Aristotle ( c.  340 BCE ), and Zhang Heng (132 CE). In 132 CE, Zhang Heng of China's Han dynasty designed

801-580: A hotel in Baroque Rome by the papal health authorities because of an epidemic of plague. Kircher's theory about the healing power of music is remembered by the protagonists in various flashbacks and finally provides the key to the puzzle. In Where Tigers Are At Home , by Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès , the protagonist works on a translation of a bogus 17th-century biography of Kircher. The contemporary artist Cybèle Varela has paid tribute to Kircher in her exhibition Ad Sidera per Athanasius Kircher , held in

890-410: A learned tongue many people at the time believed they were correct." Although Kircher's approach to deciphering texts was based on a fundamental misconception, some modern commentators have described Kircher as the pioneer of the serious study of hieroglyphs. The data which he collected were later consulted by Champollion in his successful efforts to decode the script. According to Joseph MacDonnell, it

979-453: A mantle of silicates, surrounding a core of iron. In 1906 Richard Dixon Oldham identified the separate arrival of P waves , S-waves and surface waves on seismograms and found the first clear evidence that the Earth has a central core. In 1909, Andrija Mohorovičić , one of the founders of modern seismology, discovered and defined the Mohorovičić discontinuity . Usually referred to as

SECTION 10

#1732772327130

1068-399: A month after the event. The first observations of normal modes were made in the 1960s as the advent of higher fidelity instruments coincided with two of the largest earthquakes of the 20th century the 1960 Valdivia earthquake and the 1964 Alaska earthquake . Since then, the normal modes of the Earth have given us some of the strongest constraints on the deep structure of the Earth. One of

1157-412: A near-surface explosion, and are much weaker for deep earthquake sources. Both body and surface waves are traveling waves; however, large earthquakes can also make the entire Earth "ring" like a resonant bell. This ringing is a mixture of normal modes with discrete frequencies and periods of approximately an hour or shorter. Normal mode motion caused by a very large earthquake can be observed for up to

1246-453: A particular location within a particular time-span, and they are routinely used in earthquake engineering . Public controversy over earthquake prediction erupted after Italian authorities indicted six seismologists and one government official for manslaughter in connection with a magnitude 6.3 earthquake in L'Aquila, Italy on April 5, 2009 . A report in Nature stated that the indictment

1335-504: A process known as seismic tomography . The density of the TA network — typical station spacing of about 70 km — provided a level of resolution not previously available in many parts of the country and provided finer details of the lithosphere under parts of North America. The Flexible Array was a pool of portable seismic instruments available for short-term high-density observations of particular areas of interest. The Reference Network

1424-518: A special meeting in L'Aquila the week before the earthquake occurred, scientists and officials were more interested in pacifying the population than providing adequate information about earthquake risk and preparedness. In locations where a historical record exists it may be used to estimate the timing, location and magnitude of future seismic events. There are several interpretative factors to consider. The epicentres or foci and magnitudes of historical earthquakes are subject to interpretation meaning it

1513-619: A study of dragons . The work drew heavily on the reports of Jesuits working in China, in particular Michael Boym and Martino Martini . China Illustrata emphasized the Christian elements of Chinese history, both real and imagined: the book noted the early presence of Nestorian Christians (with a Latin translation of the Nestorian Stele of Xi'an provided by Boym and his Chinese collaborator, Andrew Zheng), but also claimed that

1602-422: A study of the principles involved in his Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae . A scientific star in his day, towards the end of his life he was eclipsed by the rationalism of René Descartes and others. In the late 20th century, however, the aesthetic qualities of his work again began to be appreciated. One modern scholar, Alan Cutler, described Kircher as "a giant among seventeenth-century scholars", and "one of

1691-569: A very short time frame in a seismic cycle . Engineering seismology is the study and application of seismology for engineering purposes. It generally applied to the branch of seismology that deals with the assessment of the seismic hazard of a site or region for the purposes of earthquake engineering. It is, therefore, a link between earth science and civil engineering . There are two principal components of engineering seismology. Firstly, studying earthquake history (e.g. historical and instrumental catalogs of seismicity) and tectonics to assess

1780-580: Is Oedipus Aegyptiacus (1652–54), a vast study of Egyptology and comparative religion . His books, written in Latin , were widely circulated in the 17th century, and contributed to the wide dissemination of scientific information. Kircher is not considered to have made any significant original contributions, although some discoveries and inventions (e.g., the magic lantern ) have sometimes been mistakenly attributed to him. In his foreword to Ars Magna Sciendi Sive Combinatoria (The Great Art of Knowledge, or

1869-538: Is called a seismograph . Networks of seismographs continuously record ground motions around the world to facilitate the monitoring and analysis of global earthquakes and other sources of seismic activity. Rapid location of earthquakes makes tsunami warnings possible because seismic waves travel considerably faster than tsunami waves. Seismometers also record signals from non-earthquake sources ranging from explosions (nuclear and chemical), to local noise from wind or anthropogenic activities, to incessant signals generated at

SECTION 20

#1732772327130

1958-413: Is possible that 5–6 Mw earthquakes described in the historical record could be larger events occurring elsewhere that were felt moderately in the populated areas that produced written records. Documentation in the historic period may be sparse or incomplete, and not give a full picture of the geographic scope of an earthquake, or the historical record may only have earthquake records spanning a few centuries,

2047-885: The Collegio Romano , in the same place where the Museum Kircherianum was. The Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles has a hall dedicated to the life of Kircher. His ethnographic collection is in the Pigorini National Museum of Prehistory and Ethnography in Rome. John Glassie's book, A Man of Misconceptions , traces connections between Kircher and figures such as Gianlorenzo Bernini , René Descartes , and Isaac Newton . It also suggests influences on Edgar Allan Poe , Franz Anton Mesmer , Jules Verne , and Marcel Duchamp . In

2136-488: The Coptic languages, and some commentators regard him as the founder of Egyptology . Kircher was also fascinated with Sinology and wrote an encyclopedia of China , where he revealed the early presence of Nestorian Christians while also attempting to establish links with Egypt and Christianity. Kircher's work in geology included studies of volcanoes and fossils . One of the first researchers to observe microbes through

2225-500: The Earth or other planetary bodies . It also includes studies of earthquake environmental effects such as tsunamis as well as diverse seismic sources such as volcanic, tectonic, glacial, fluvial , oceanic microseism , atmospheric, and artificial processes such as explosions and human activities . A related field that uses geology to infer information regarding past earthquakes is paleoseismology . A recording of Earth motion as

2314-511: The Habsburg court. On the intervention of Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc , the order was rescinded, and he was sent instead to Rome to continue with his scholarly work, but he had already embarked for Vienna. On the way, his ship was blown off course and he arrived in Rome before he knew of the changed destination. He based himself in the city for the rest of his life, and from 1634 he taught mathematics, physics and Oriental languages at

2403-454: The VAN method . Most seismologists do not believe that a system to provide timely warnings for individual earthquakes has yet been developed, and many believe that such a system would be unlikely to give useful warning of impending seismic events. However, more general forecasts routinely predict seismic hazard . Such forecasts estimate the probability of an earthquake of a particular size affecting

2492-480: The tides were caused by water moving to and from a subterranean ocean . Kircher was also puzzled by fossils . He understood that fossils were the remains of animals. He ascribed large bones to giant races of humans. Not all the objects which he was attempting to explain were in fact fossils, hence the diversity of explanations. He interpreted mountain ranges as the Earth's skeletal structures exposed by weathering. Mundus Subterraneus includes several pages about

2581-518: The "Moho discontinuity" or the " Moho ," it is the boundary between the Earth 's crust and the mantle . It is defined by the distinct change in velocity of seismological waves as they pass through changing densities of rock. In 1910, after studying the April 1906 San Francisco earthquake , Harry Fielding Reid put forward the " elastic rebound theory " which remains the foundation for modern tectonic studies. The development of this theory depended on

2670-634: The Chinese were descended from the sons of Ham , that Confucius was Hermes Trismegistus/Moses and that the Chinese characters were abstracted hieroglyphs. In Kircher's system, ideograms were inferior to hieroglyphs because they referred to specific ideas rather than to mysterious complexes of ideas, while the signs of the Maya and Aztecs were yet lower pictograms which referred only to objects. Umberto Eco comments that this idea reflected and supported

2759-556: The Collegio Romano (now the Pontifical Gregorian University ) for several years before being released to devote himself to research. He studied malaria and the plague , amassing a collection of antiquities , which he exhibited along with devices of his own creation in the Museum Kircherianum . In 1661, Kircher discovered the ruins of a church said to have been constructed by Constantine on

USArray - Misplaced Pages Continue

2848-490: The Combinatorial Art), the inscription reads: "Nothing is more beautiful than to know all." The last known example of Egyptian hieroglyphics dates from AD 394, after which all knowledge of hieroglyphics was lost. Until Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion found the key to hieroglyphics in the 19th century, the main authority was the 4th-century Greek grammarian Horapollon , whose chief contribution

2937-661: The Copernican ;— as distinct possibilities. The clock has been reconstructed by Caroline Bouguereau in collaboration with Michael John Gorman and is on display at the Green Library at Stanford University. The Musurgia Universalis (1650) sets out Kircher's views on music : he believed that the harmony of music reflected the proportions of the universe . The book includes plans for constructing water-powered automatic organs , notations of birdsong and diagrams of musical instruments . One illustration shows

3026-618: The NSF SAGE Facility Data Services, operated by EarthScope Consortium (previously known as the IRIS Data Management Center). Seismic Seismology ( / s aɪ z ˈ m ɒ l ə dʒ i , s aɪ s -/ ; from Ancient Greek σεισμός ( seismós ) meaning " earthquake " and -λογία ( -logía ) meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes ) and the generation and propagation of elastic waves through

3115-607: The behaviour and causation of earthquakes. The earliest responses include work by John Bevis (1757) and John Michell (1761). Michell determined that earthquakes originate within the Earth and were waves of movement caused by "shifting masses of rock miles below the surface". In response to a series of earthquakes near Comrie in Scotland in 1839, a committee was formed in the United Kingdom in order to produce better detection methods for earthquakes. The outcome of this

3204-557: The clock's motion supported the Copernican cosmological model, arguing that the magnetic sphere in the clock rotated by the magnetic force of the sun . Kircher's model disproved that hypothesis, showing that the motion could be produced by a water clock in the base of the device. Although Kircher disputed the Copernican model in his Magnes , supporting instead that of Tycho Brahe , his later Itinerarium exstaticum (1656, revised 1671), presented several systems — including

3293-542: The considerable progress of earlier independent streams of work on the behavior of elastic materials and in mathematics. An early scientific study of aftershocks from a destructive earthquake came after the January 1920 Xalapa earthquake . An 80 kg (180 lb) Wiechert seismograph was brought to the Mexican city of Xalapa by rail after the earthquake. The instrument was deployed to record its aftershocks. Data from

3382-550: The context of his Coptic studies. However, according to Steven Frimmer, "none of them even remotely fitted the original texts". In Oedipus Aegyptiacus , Kircher argued under the impression of the Hieroglyphica that ancient Egyptian was the language spoken by Adam and Eve , that Hermes Trismegistus was Moses , and that hieroglyphs were occult symbols which "cannot be translated by words, but expressed only by marks, characters and figures." This led him to translate

3471-426: The differences between the ears of humans and other animals. In Phonurgia Nova (1673) Kircher considered the possibilities of transmitting music to remote places. Other machines designed by Kircher include an aeolian harp , automatons such as a statue which spoke and listened via a speaking tube , a perpetual motion machine , and a Katzenklavier ("cat piano"). The Katzenklavier would have driven spikes into

3560-590: The disaster via astrology, though Kircher privately insisted that he had not relied on it. This was the year that Kircher published his first book (the Ars Magnesia , reporting his research on magnetism ), but having been caught up in the Thirty Years' War he was driven to the papal University of Avignon in France . In 1633 he was called to Vienna by the emperor to succeed Kepler as Mathematician to

3649-512: The earth to a resolution of several hundred kilometers. This has enabled scientists to identify convection cells and other large-scale features such as the large low-shear-velocity provinces near the core–mantle boundary . Forecasting a probable timing, location, magnitude and other important features of a forthcoming seismic event is called earthquake prediction . Various attempts have been made by seismologists and others to create effective systems for precise earthquake predictions, including

USArray - Misplaced Pages Continue

3738-710: The earthquakes that could occur in a region and their characteristics and frequency of occurrence. Secondly, studying strong ground motions generated by earthquakes to assess the expected shaking from future earthquakes with similar characteristics. These strong ground motions could either be observations from accelerometers or seismometers or those simulated by computers using various techniques, which are then often used to develop ground motion prediction equations (or ground-motion models) [1] . Seismological instruments can generate large amounts of data. Systems for processing such data include: Athanasius Kircher Athanasius Kircher SJ (2 May 1602 – 27 November 1680)

3827-504: The end, Glassie writes, Kircher should be acknowledged “for his effort to know everything and to share everything he knew, for asking a thousand questions about the world around him, and for getting so many others to ask questions about his answers; for stimulating, as well as confounding and inadvertently amusing, so many minds; for having been a source of so many ideas—right, wrong, half-right, half-baked, ridiculous, beautiful, and all-encompassing.” Kircher's life and research are central to

3916-472: The ethnocentric European attitude toward Chinese and native American civilizations: "China was presented not as an unknown barbarian to be defeated but as a prodigal son who should return to the home of the common father". (p. 69) In 1675, he published Arca Noë , the results of his research on the biblical Ark of Noah — following the Counter-Reformation , allegorical interpretation

4005-456: The first attempts at the scientific study of earthquakes followed the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Other notable earthquakes that spurred major advancements in the science of seismology include the 1857 Basilicata earthquake , the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, the 1964 Alaska earthquake , the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake , and the 2011 Great East Japan earthquake . Seismic waves produced by explosions or vibrating controlled sources are one of

4094-586: The first known seismoscope . In the 17th century, Athanasius Kircher argued that earthquakes were caused by the movement of fire within a system of channels inside the Earth. Martin Lister (1638–1712) and Nicolas Lemery (1645–1715) proposed that earthquakes were caused by chemical explosions within the Earth. The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 , coinciding with the general flowering of science in Europe , set in motion intensified scientific attempts to understand

4183-457: The first recorded drawings of complete bipartite graphs , extending a similar technique used by Llull to visualize complete graphs . Kircher also employed combinatorics in his Arca Musarithmica , an aleatoric music device capable of composing millions of church hymns by combining randomly selected musical phrases. For most of his professional life, Kircher was one of the scientific stars of his world: according to historian Paula Findlen, he

4272-415: The first waves to appear on a seismogram as they are the fastest moving waves through solids. S-waves are transverse waves that move perpendicular to the direction of propagation. S-waves are slower than P-waves. Therefore, they appear later than P-waves on a seismogram. Fluids cannot support transverse elastic waves because of their low shear strength, so S-waves only travel in solids. Surface waves are

4361-477: The foundation of modern instrumental seismology and carried out seismological experiments using explosives. He is also responsible for coining the word "seismology." In 1889 Ernst von Rebeur-Paschwitz recorded the first teleseismic earthquake signal (an earthquake in Japan recorded at Pottsdam Germany). In 1897, Emil Wiechert 's theoretical calculations led him to conclude that the Earth's interior consists of

4450-432: The global seismographic monitoring has been for the detection and study of nuclear testing . Because seismic waves commonly propagate efficiently as they interact with the internal structure of the Earth, they provide high-resolution noninvasive methods for studying the planet's interior. One of the earliest important discoveries (suggested by Richard Dixon Oldham in 1906 and definitively shown by Harold Jeffreys in 1926)

4539-406: The interior of the materials; surface waves that travel along surfaces or interfaces between materials; and normal modes , a form of standing wave. There are two types of body waves, pressure waves or primary waves (P-waves) and shear or secondary waves ( S waves ). P-waves are longitudinal waves that involve compression and expansion in the direction that the wave is moving and are always

SECTION 50

#1732772327130

4628-489: The last development of ancient Egyptian . For this Kircher has been considered the true "founder of Egyptology", because his work was conducted "before the discovery of the Rosetta Stone rendered Egyptian hieroglyphics comprehensible to scholars". He also recognized the relationship between hieratic and hieroglyphic scripts. Between 1650 and 1654, Kircher published four volumes of "translations" of hieroglyphs in

4717-432: The last thinkers who could rightfully claim all knowledge as his domain". Another scholar, Edward W. Schmidt, referred to Kircher as "the last Renaissance man ". In A Man of Misconceptions , his 2012 book about Kircher, John Glassie wrote "many of Kircher's actual ideas today seem wildly off-base, if not simply bizarre," but he was "a champion of wonder, a man of awe-inspiring erudition and inventiveness," whose work

4806-534: The legendary island of Atlantis including a map with the Latin caption "Situs Insulae Atlantidis, a Mari olim absorpte ex mente Egyptiorum et Platonis Description," translating as "Site of the island of Atlantis, in the sea, from Egyptian sources and Plato's description." In his book Arca Noë , Kircher argued that after the Flood new species were transformed as they moved into different environments, for example, when

4895-481: The ocean floor and coasts induced by ocean waves (the global microseism ), to cryospheric events associated with large icebergs and glaciers. Above-ocean meteor strikes with energies as high as 4.2 × 10 J (equivalent to that released by an explosion of ten kilotons of TNT) have been recorded by seismographs, as have a number of industrial accidents and terrorist bombs and events (a field of study referred to as forensic seismology ). A major long-term motivation for

4984-436: The ocean processes responsible for the global background seismic microseism . By the 1960s, Earth science had developed to the point where a comprehensive theory of the causation of seismic events and geodetic motions had come together in the now well-established theory of plate tectonics . Seismic waves are elastic waves that propagate in solid or fluid materials. They can be divided into body waves that travel through

5073-481: The primary methods of underground exploration in geophysics (in addition to many different electromagnetic methods such as induced polarization and magnetotellurics ). Controlled-source seismology has been used to map salt domes , anticlines and other geologic traps in petroleum -bearing rocks , faults , rock types, and long-buried giant meteor craters . For example, the Chicxulub Crater , which

5162-432: The rabbis in the court of King Solomon ). Kircher stressed that exhibitors should take great care to inform spectators that such images were purely naturalistic, and not magical. Kircher constructed a magnetic clock, which he explained in his Magnes (1641). The clock had been invented by another Jesuit, Fr. Linus of Liege , and was described by an acquaintance of Line's in 1634. Kircher's patron Peiresc had claimed that

5251-400: The result of P- and S-waves interacting with the surface of the Earth. These waves are dispersive , meaning that different frequencies have different velocities. The two main surface wave types are Rayleigh waves , which have both compressional and shear motions, and Love waves , which are purely shear. Rayleigh waves result from the interaction of P-waves and vertically polarized S-waves with

5340-416: The seismograph would eventually determine that the mainshock was produced along a shallow crustal fault. In 1926, Harold Jeffreys was the first to claim, based on his study of earthquake waves, that below the mantle, the core of the Earth is liquid. In 1937, Inge Lehmann determined that within Earth's liquid outer core there is a solid inner core . In 1950, Michael S. Longuet-Higgins elucidated

5429-530: The setting for a Borges story that was never written", while Umberto Eco has written about Kircher in his novel The Island of the Day Before , as well as in his non-fiction works The Search for the Perfect Language and Serendipities . In the historical novel Imprimatur by Monaldi & Sorti (2002), Kircher plays a major role. Shortly after his death, some travelers are locked up in

SECTION 60

#1732772327130

5518-482: The simple hieroglyphic text ḏd Wsr ("Osiris says") as "The treachery of Typhon ends at the throne of Isis; the moisture of nature is guarded by the vigilance of Anubis" Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge mentioned Kircher as the foremost of writers who "pretended to have found the key to the hieroglyphics" and called his translations in Oedipus Aegyptiacus "utter nonsense, but as they were put forth in

5607-679: The site of Saint Eustace 's vision of a crucifix in a stag's horns. He raised money to pay for the church's reconstruction as the Santuario della Mentorella  [ it ] , and his heart was buried in the church upon his death. Kircher published many substantial books on a wide variety of subjects such as Egyptology , geology , and music theory . His syncretic approach disregarded conventional boundaries between disciplines: his Magnes , for example, ostensibly discussed magnetism , but also explored other modes of attraction such as gravity and love . Perhaps Kircher's best-known work

5696-450: The spread of disease, such as isolation, quarantine , burning clothes worn by the infected and wearing facemasks to prevent the inhalation of germs . In 1646, Kircher published Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae , concerning the display of images on a screen using an apparatus similar to the magic lantern developed by Christiaan Huygens and others. Kircher described the construction of a "catoptric lamp" that used reflection to project images on

5785-591: The story and of the origin of the manuscript itself exists. In his Polygraphia Nova (1663), Kircher proposed an artificial universal language . On a visit to southern Italy in 1638, the ever-curious Kircher was lowered into the crater of Vesuvius , then on the brink of eruption, to examine its interior. He was also intrigued by the subterranean rumbling which he heard at the Strait of Messina . His geological and geographical investigations culminated in his Mundus Subterraneus of 1664, in which he suggested that

5874-476: The surface and can exist in any solid medium. Love waves are formed by horizontally polarized S-waves interacting with the surface, and can only exist if there is a change in the elastic properties with depth in a solid medium, which is always the case in seismological applications. Surface waves travel more slowly than P-waves and S-waves because they are the result of these waves traveling along indirect paths to interact with Earth's surface. Because they travel along

5963-399: The surface of the Earth, their energy decays less rapidly than body waves (1/distance vs. 1/distance ), and thus the shaking caused by surface waves is generally stronger than that of body waves, and the primary surface waves are often thus the largest signals on earthquake seismograms . Surface waves are strongly excited when their source is close to the surface, as in a shallow earthquake or

6052-446: The tails of cats, which would yowl to specified pitches , but was never constructed. In Phonurgia Nova , literally "new methods of sound production", Kircher examined acoustic phenomena. He explored the use of horns and cones in amplifying sound for architectural applications. He also examined echoes in rooms using domes of different shapes, including the muffling effect of an elliptical dome from Heidelberg. In one section he explored

6141-485: The therapeutic effects of music in tarantism , a theme from southern Italy. Although Kircher's work was not mathematically based, he did develop systems for generating and counting all combinations of a finite collection of objects (i.e., a finite set ), based on the previous work of Ramon Llull . His methods and diagrams are discussed in Ars Magna Sciendi, sive Combinatoria , 1669. They include what may be

6230-471: The wall of a darkened room. Although Kircher did not invent the device, he improved it, and suggested methods by which exhibitors could use his device. Much of the significance of his work arises from Kircher's rational approach towards the demystification of projected images. Previously, such images had been used in Europe to mimic supernatural appearances (Kircher himself cites the use of displayed images by

6319-600: Was ordained to the priesthood in 1628 and became professor of ethics and mathematics at the University of Würzburg , where he also taught Hebrew and Syriac. Beginning in 1628, he began to show an interest in Egyptian hieroglyphs. In 1631, while still at Würzburg , Kircher allegedly had a prophetic vision of bright light and armed men with horses in the city. Würzburg was attacked shortly afterwards and captured, leading to Kircher being accorded respect for predicting

6408-495: Was "because of Kircher's work that scientists knew what to look for when interpreting the Rosetta stone". Another scholar of ancient Egypt, Erik Iversen, concluded: It is, therefore, Kircher's incontestable merit that he was the first to have discovered the phonetic value of an Egyptian hieroglyph. From a humanistic as well as an intellectual point of view Egyptology may very well be proud of having Kircher as its founder. Kircher

6497-432: Was "the first scholar with a global reputation". His importance was twofold: to the results of his own experiments and research he added information gleaned from his correspondence with over 760 scientists, physicians and above all his fellow Jesuits in all parts of the globe. The Encyclopædia Britannica calls him a "one-man intellectual clearing house". His works, illustrated to his orders, were extremely popular, and he

6586-473: Was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works of comparative religion , geology , and medicine . Kircher has been compared to fellow Jesuit Roger Joseph Boscovich and to Leonardo da Vinci for his vast range of interests, and has been honoured with the title "Master of a Hundred Arts". He taught for more than 40 years at the Roman College , where he set up

6675-798: Was a network of 400 high-quality broadband seismographs on temporary sites that marched across the conterminous United States. The initial deployment, in August 2007, was in the western quarter of the United States. Since then the stations on the western edge were regularly relocated to the eastern edge at a rate of about four stations per week. The Transportable Array reached the East Coast in 2013, and wound up in 2017, having occupied nearly 2000 sites. An archive of stations are listed online. Geological structures can be mapped by observing how they affect seismic waves from local and distant earthquakes,

6764-582: Was also actively involved in the erection of the Pamphilj obelisk , and added "hieroglyphs" of his design in the blank areas. Rowland 2002 concluded that Kircher made use of Pythagorean principles to read hieroglyphs of the Pamphili Obelisk , and used the same form of interpretation when reading scripture. Kircher had an early interest in China , telling his superior in 1629 that he wished to become

6853-611: Was an additional 100+ permanent stations located on approximately 300 km spacings that provided a long-term reference frame. These also augmented the USGS Advanced National Seismic System (ANSS), providing seismic observations in areas where instrumentation had been lacking. The Magnetotelluric Array measured naturally occurring electric and magnetic fields. It consisted of seven permanent magnetotelluric (MT) stations and twenty portable stations. Data from these instruments are available from

6942-529: Was brought to feed carnivores and what the daily schedule of feeding and caring for animals must have been. Kircher was sent the Voynich Manuscript in 1666 by Johannes Marcus Marci in the hope of Kircher being able to decipher it. The manuscript remained in the Collegio Romano until Victor Emmanuel II of Italy annexed the Papal States in 1870, though scepticism as to the authenticity of

7031-490: Was caught and nearly hanged by a party of Protestant soldiers. From 1622 to 1624 Kircher was sent to begin his regency period in Koblenz as a teacher. This was followed by assignment to Heiligenstadt , where he taught mathematics , Hebrew and Syriac , and produced a show of fireworks and moving scenery for the visiting Elector Archbishop of Mainz , showing early evidence of his interest in mechanical devices . He

7120-591: Was caused by an impact that has been implicated in the extinction of the dinosaurs , was localized to Central America by analyzing ejecta in the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary , and then physically proven to exist using seismic maps from oil exploration . Seismometers are sensors that detect and record the motion of the Earth arising from elastic waves. Seismometers may be deployed at the Earth's surface, in shallow vaults, in boreholes, or underwater . A complete instrument package that records seismic signals

7209-515: Was giving way to the study of the Old Testament as literal truth among Scriptural scholars. Kircher analyzed the dimensions of the Ark; based on the number of species known to him (excluding insects and other forms thought to arise spontaneously ), he calculated that overcrowding would not have been a problem. He also discussed the logistics of the Ark voyage, speculating on whether extra livestock

7298-499: Was largely neglected until the late 20th century. One writer attributes his rediscovery to the similarities between his eclectic approach and postmodernism . As few of Kircher's works have been translated, the contemporary emphasis has been on their aesthetic qualities rather than their actual content, and a succession of exhibitions have highlighted the beauty of their illustrations. Historian Anthony Grafton has said that "the staggeringly strange dark continent of Kircher's work [is]

7387-738: Was read "by the smartest minds of the time." Kircher was born on 2 May in either 1601 or 1602 (he himself did not know) in Geisa , Buchonia , near Fulda ( Thuringia , Germany ). From his birthplace, he took the epithets Bucho, Buchonius and Fuldensis which he sometimes added to his name. He attended the Jesuit College in Fulda from 1614 to 1618, when he entered the novitiate of the Society. The youngest of nine children, Kircher studied volcanoes owing to his passion for rocks and eruptions. He

7476-401: Was taught Hebrew by a rabbi in addition to his studies at school. He studied philosophy and theology at Paderborn , but fled to Cologne in 1622 to escape advancing Protestant forces. On the journey, he narrowly escaped death after falling through the ice crossing the frozen Rhine — one of several occasions on which his life was endangered. Later, traveling to Heiligenstadt , he

7565-409: Was that the outer core of the earth is liquid. Since S-waves do not pass through liquids, the liquid core causes a "shadow" on the side of the planet opposite the earthquake where no direct S-waves are observed. In addition, P-waves travel much slower through the outer core than the mantle. Processing readings from many seismometers using seismic tomography , seismologists have mapped the mantle of

7654-603: Was the first scientist to be able to support himself through the sale of his books. His near-exact contemporary, the English philosopher-physician, Sir Thomas Browne (1605–82) collected his books avidly while his eldest son Edward Browne in 1665 visited the Jesuit priest resident at Rome. Towards the end of Kircher's life, however, his stock fell, as the rationalist Cartesian approach began to dominate (Descartes himself described Kircher as "more quacksalver than savant"). Kircher

7743-789: Was the misconception that hieroglyphics were "picture writing" and that future translators should look for symbolic meaning in the pictures. The first modern study of hieroglyphics came with Piero Valeriano Bolzani 's Hieroglyphica (1556). Kircher was the most famous of the "decipherers" between ancient and modern times and the most famous Egyptologist of his day. In his Lingua Aegyptiaca Restituta (1643), Kircher called hieroglyphics "this language hitherto unknown in Europe, in which there are as many pictures as letters, as many riddles as sounds, in short as many mazes to be escaped from as mountains to be climbed". While some of his notions are long discredited, portions of his work have been valuable to later scholars, and Kircher helped pioneer Egyptology as

7832-415: Was the production of one of the first modern seismometers by James David Forbes , first presented in a report by David Milne-Home in 1842. This seismometer was an inverted pendulum, which recorded the measurements of seismic activity through the use of a pencil placed on paper above the pendulum. The designs provided did not prove effective, according to Milne's reports. From 1857, Robert Mallet laid

7921-741: Was widely seen in Italy and abroad as being for failing to predict the earthquake and drew condemnation from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Geophysical Union . However, the magazine also indicated that the population of Aquila do not consider the failure to predict the earthquake to be the reason for the indictment, but rather the alleged failure of the scientists to evaluate and communicate risk. The indictment claims that, at

#129870