Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin, born January 17, 1706, was the 10th son, and 15th child, of 17 children in the Josiah Franklin family. Josiah was a soap and candlemaker, who lived in Boston, Massachusetts with his second wife, Abiah Folger. Although Franklin learned to read at an early age, he only attended grammar school for two years. By the time he was 10 years old, Franklin was working for his father. However, he did not enjoy the candlemaking profession, and two years later, Franklin was apprenticed to his brother James, a printer. 

 

For five years, Franklin sought to master the printers' trade. During this time, he also strove to improve his education. Franklin read numerous classics and perfected his writing style. One night, Franklin slipped a letter, signed "Silence Dogood," under the door of his brother's newspaper, the New England Courant. That letter and the next 13 written by Franklin were published anonymously. The essays were widely read and acclaimed for their satire. 

After a quarrel with his brother in 1723, Franklin left Boston for Philadelphia, where he again worked in the printing industry. He established a friendship with the Pennsylvania governor, Sir William Keith, and at Keith's suggestion, Franklin decided to go into business for himself. Keith offered to arrange letters of credit and introduction for Franklin's trip to London to purchase equipment. Unfortunately, Keith proved unreliable, and Franklin arrived in London with no means. However, he quickly found employment in two of London's largest printing houses, and after two years, earned enough money to return to America. 

Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1726 and resumed his trade. By 1730, Franklin had his own business. That same year, he married Deborah Read, a woman he met before his trip to England. Together they had a son, who died at four years of age; and a daughter, who survived them both. 

Franklin's business ventures included the purchase of the Pennsylvania Gazette, which, after his improvement, was considered one of the best colonial newspapers; Poor Richard's Almanac, written under the pseudonym, Richard Saunders, and published from 1732 to 1757; and the printing of Pennsylvania's paper currency. In 1731, Franklin founded what is considered the first public library. During the next several years, Franklin was instrumental in establishing the first fire department, a police force, and the Academy of Philadelphia, which became the University of Pennsylvania. Around 1744, Franklin invented a stove which reduced excessive chimney smoke. The Franklin stove is still in use today. 

In the 1740's, Franklin began experimenting with electricity, which led to the invention of the lightning rod. By 1748, Franklin had sold his printing business to devote himself to his scientific experiments. His famous electricity experiment, which included flying a kite during a lightning storm took place in 1752. In addition to his science projects, Franklin was elected to the Pennsylvania assembly and held the post for 14 years. In 1753, he was appointed deputy postmaster general. The following year, Franklin became a Pennsylvania delegate to the intercolonial congress, which met in Albany. His suggestion to unite the colonies as a defense against the French and natives was considered premature and rejected. 

In 1757, Franklin was sent to England to petition the king for the right to levy taxes. He remained in England for the next five years, as the representative of the American colonies. Franklin returned to England in 1764 as an agent of Pennsylvania, to negotiate a new charter. He was able to secure the repeal of the Stamp Act, but Parliament continued to levy taxes on the colonies. In 1775, with war seemingly inevitable, Franklin returned to America. Shortly thereafter, he was made a member of the Second Continental Congress and helped draft the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson supposed stated that the only reason Franklin didn't write the entire Declaration was because he would include too many jokes. 

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In December, 1776, Franklin, age 71, traveled to France to successfully negotiate a treaty of commerce and defensive alliance. He remained in France for nine years, working on trade treaties. Franklin became a hero to the French, and his company was sought by diplomats and nobility. He was honored by Louis XVI, and his portrait was placed on everything from chamber pots to snuff boxes.

Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1785. Two years later, he became a member of the Constitutional Convention. Franklin was bedridden during the final year of his life and died on April 17, 1790. As one of his final public acts, he signed a petition to the U.S. Congress urging the abolition of slavery, just two months before his death.

James Watt

A Scottish instrument maker, mechanical engineer and inventor, who contributed to the Industrial Revolution with his improvements of the steam engine .
 
James Watt was born on January 19, 1736, in Greenock, Scotland. At the age of 17, while becoming intrigued with Thomas Newcomen's steam engine, he decided to become a maker of mathematical instruments. Two years later, he became interested in improving the Newcomen-Savery steam engines that were used to pump water from mines at the time.

By the age of 29, Watt created a separated condenser for steam engines. He determined the properties of steam, especially the relation of its density to its pressure and temperature. Having this in mind, he designed a separate condensing chamber for the steam engine, which seized great losses of steam in the cylinder and improved the vacuum conditions. In 1767, he built an attachment that made telescopes suitable for the measurement of distances. In 1768, he associated with John Roebuck of the Carron, a British inventor who had financed Watt's researches, and received a patent the next year for his method of lessening the consumption of fuel and steam in an engine and for other enhancements on Newcomen's device.

In 1772, John Roebuck became bankrupt and, three years later, Matthew Boulton, a British manufacturer who owned the Soho Engineering Works at Birmingham, became Watt's new associate. Watt and Boulton began the manufacture of steam engines.

James W. supervised the installation of pumping engines in copper and tin mines from 1776 to 1781. His study on engines continued and he received many patents for other important inventions, which included the sun-and-planet gear, the rotary engine, the double-action engine, and the steam indicator.

In 1785, he was chosen as a fellow of the Royal Society of London.

In 1788, he invented the centrifugal or flyball governor that regulated the speed of an engine automatically and, in 1790, the pressure gauge. In the XIX century, he retired from the firm and dedicated himself to his research work.

James Watt was sometimes mistaken by the actual creator of the steam engine. This was due to the great contributions he has done on the development of this device.

The Watt, the electrical unit (or unit of Power), was named in his honor.

Besides being an inventor and a mechanical engineer, Watt was also a civil engineer and made various surveys of canal routes.

He died on August 19, 1819, in Heathfield, England.

Thomas Alva Edison

Thomas Alva Edison was the most prolific inventor in American history. He amassed a record 1,093 patents covering key innovations and minor improvements in wide range of fields, including telecommunications, electric power, sound recording, motion pictures, primary and storage batteries, and mining and cement technology. As important, he broadened the notion of invention to encompass what we now call innovation-invention, research, development, and commercialization-and invented the industrial research laboratory. Edison's role as an innovator is evident not only in his two major laboratories at Menlo Park and West Orange in New Jersey but in more than 300 companies formed worldwide to manufacture and market his inventions, many of which carried the Edison name, including some 200 Edison illuminating companies.

Early Life

Edison was born in 1847 in the canal town of Milan, Ohio, the last of seven children. His mother, Nancy, had been a school teacher; his father, Samuel, was a Canadian political firebrand who was exiled from his country. The family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, when Thomas was seven. He attended school briefly but was principally educated at home by his mother and in his father's library.

In 1859 Edison began working on a local branch of the Grand Trunk Railroad, selling newspapers, magazines, and candy. At one point he printed a newspaper on the train, and he also conducted chemical experiments in a baggage-car laboratory. By 1862 he had learned enough telegraphy to be employed as an operator in a local office.

From 1863 to 1867 he traveled through the Midwest as an itinerant telegrapher. During these years he read widely, studied and experimented with telegraph technology, and generally acquainted himself with electrical science.

Early Inventive Career

In 1868 Edison became an independent inventor in Boston. Moving to New York the next year, he undertook inventive work for major telegraph companies. With money from those contracts he established a series of manufacturing shops in Newark, New Jersey, where he also employed experimental machinists to assist in his inventive work.

Edison soon acquired a reputation as a first-rank inventor. His work included stock tickers, fire alarms, methods of sending simultaneous messages on one wire, and an electrochemical telegraph to send messages by automatic machinery. The crowning achievement of this period was the quadruplex telegraph, which sent two messages simultaneously in each direction on one wire.

The problems of interfering signals in multiple telegraphy and high speed in automatic transmission forced Edison to extend his study of electromagnetism and chemistry. As a result, he introduced electrical and chemical laboratories into his experimental machine shops.

Near the end of 1875, observations of strange sparks in telegraph instruments led Edison into a public scientific controversy over what he called "etheric force," which only later was understood to be radio waves.

Menlo Park

In 1876, Edison created a freestanding industrial research facility incorporating both a machine shop and laboratories. Here in Menlo Park, on the rail line between New York City and Philadelphia, he developed three of his greatest inventions.

Urged by Western Union to develop a telephone that could compete with Alexander Graham Bell's, Edison invented a transmitter in which a button of compressed carbon changed its resistance as it was vibrated by the sound of the user's voice, a new principle that was used in telephones for the next century.

While working on the telephone in the summer of 1877, Edison discovered a method of recording sound, and in the late fall he unveiled the phonograph. This astounding instrument brought him world fame as the "Wizard of Menlo Park" and the "inventor of the age."

Finally, beginning in the fall of 1878, Edison devoted thirty months to developing a complete system of incandescent electric lighting. During his lamp experiments, he noticed an electrical phenomenon that became known as the "Edison effect," the basis for vacuum-tube electronics.

He left Menlo Park in 1881 to establish factories and offices in New York and elsewhere. Over the next five years he manufactured, improved, and installed his electrical system around the world.

West Orange Laboratory

In 1887, Edison built an industrial research laboratory in West Orange, New Jersey, that remained unsurpassed until the twentieth century. For four years it was the primary research facility for the Edison lighting companies, and Edison spent most of his time on that work. In 1888 and 1889, he concentrated for several months on a new version of the phonograph that recorded on wax cylinders.

Edison worked with William Dickson from 1888 till 1893 on a motion picture camera. Although Edison had always had experimental assistants, this was the clearest instance of a co-invention for which Edison received sole credit.

In 1887 Edison also returned to experiments on the electromagnetic separation and concentration of low-grade iron and gold ores, work he had begun in 1879. During the 1890's he built a full-scale plant in northern New Jersey to process iron ore. This venture was Edison's most notable commercial failure.

Later Years

After the mining failure, Edison adapted some of the machinery to process Portland cement. A roasting kiln he developed became an industry standard. Edison cement was used for buildings, dams, and even Yankee Stadium.

In the early years of the automobile industry there were hopes for an electric vehicle, and Edison spent the first decade of the twentieth century trying to develop a suitable storage battery. Although gas power won out, Edison's battery was used extensively in industry.

In World War I the federal government asked Edison to head the Naval Consulting Board, which examined inventions submitted for military use. Edison worked on several problems, including submarine detectors and gun location techniques.

By the time of his death in 1931, Edison had received 1,093 U.S. patents, a total still untouched by any other inventor. Even more important, he created a model for modern industrial research.

Edwin Powell Hubble

Edwin Powell Hubble was born in Marshfield, Missouri in 1889. He was described as a tall, elegant, athletic man. Edwin's father was John P. Hubble, was an agent in a fire insurance firm, and his mother Virginia Lee James, was a homemaker and was a descendent of the English colonist Miles Standish.   Hubble was one of seven children in his family. Hubble was married in 1924 to Grace Burke Leib. 

 

Hubble attended high school in Chicago, Illinois. In 1910 he received his bachelor's degree in mathematics and astronomy. Hubble was then awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford in England. There Hubble earned a law degree in 1912. In 1913 Hubble moved back to the United States and lived in Kentucky where his family was. In the next year Hubble taught high school and practiced law in Kentucky and Indiana. In 1914, Hubble moved to Wisconsin where he took a research post at the University of Chicago's Yerkes Observatory.   Hubble made many important observations here like discovering a difference in nebulas and distant galaxies, discovered a Cepheid star in the Andromeda nebula now called the Great Andromeda Galaxy, located other nebulas outside our galaxy, had his own theory of nebulas being in galaxies a lot like ours called the island universe theory, divided galaxies up according to shape, measured the distance between Earth and the galaxies he studied, and he also measured galaxies' speeds compared to earth which related to the Doppler effect. In 1929 Hubble made possibly his most important discovery. Hubble compared distances of galaxies to the speed at which they were moving away from Earth. He found a very consistent correlation: “The farther a galaxy was from Earth, the faster it was receding.”   Hubble continued to study this because of its consistency and it was later named Hubble's Law. Hubble also concluded that the relationship between velocity and distance must mean the universe is expanding. Other scientists had made models of this theory but Hubble was the first to actually prove it. The relationship of the velocity of galaxies to their distance is called the Hubble constant. Using this, scientists could actually determine the age of the universe.

 

Hubble earned a Ph.D. degree in astronomy from the University of Chicago and received an invitation from astronomer George Hale to work at Mount Wilson Observatory in California.   Around that same time, Hubble volunteered to serve in World War I. He remained on active duty until 1919 leaving the Army in the rank of major. Later that year he excepted the offer at Mount Wilson where the Hooker Telescope was located. That telescope was the largest in the world until 1948.   Hubble would work at Mount Wilson Observatory for the rest of his career.   He would later serve in WWII where he was a ballistics expert for the U.S. Department of War.

 Hubble was an active researcher until his death in 1953. He was involved in the building of the Hale telescope, which was the largest telescope in the world from 1948 until 1990. The Hubble telescope, which went into orbit around earth in 1990, was named after Hubble and is still helping scientists make important discoveries today.

 

Galileo Galilei

Galileo Galilei was born in Pisa, Italy on February 15, 1564. He was the oldest of seven children. His father was a musician and wool trader, who wanted his son to study medicine as there was more money in medicine. At age eleven, Galileo was sent off to study in a Jesuit monastery.

Galileo Galilei - Rerouted from Religon to Science

After four years, Galileo had announced to his father that he wanted to be a monk. This was not exactly what father had in mind, so Galileo was hastily withdrawn from the monastery. In 1581, at the age of 17, he entered the University of Pisa to study medicine, as his father wished.

Galileo Galilei - Law of the Pendulum

At age twenty, Galileo noticed a lamp swinging overhead while he was in a cathedral. Curious to find out how long it took the lamp to swing back and forth, he used his pulse to time large and small swings. Galileo discovered something that no one else had ever realized: the period of each swing was exactly the same. The law of the pendulum, which would eventually be used to regulate clocks, made Galileo Galilei instantly famous.

Except for mathematics, Galileo Galilei was bored with university. Galileo's family was informed that their son was in danger of flunking out. A compromise was worked out, where Galileo would be tutored full-time in mathematics by the mathematician of the Tuscan court. Galileo's father was hardly overjoyed about this turn of events, since a mathematician's earning power was roughly around that of a musician, but it seemed that this might yet allow Galileo to successfully complete his college education. However, Galileo soon left the University of Pisa without a degree.

Galileo Galilei - Mathematics

To earn a living, Galileo Galilei started tutoring students in mathematics. He did some experimenting with floating objects, developing a balance that could tell him that a piece of, say, gold was 19.3 times heavier than the same volume of water. He also started campaigning for his life's ambition: a position on the mathematics faculty at a major university. Although Galileo was clearly brilliant, he had offended many people in the field, who would choose other candidates for vacancies. 

Galileo Galilei - Dante's Inferno

Ironically, it was a lecture on literature that would turn Galileo's fortunes. The Academy of Florence had been arguing over a 100-year-old controversy: What were the location, shape, and dimensions of Dante's Inferno? Galileo Galilei wanted to seriously answer the question from the point of view of a scientist. Extrapolating from Dante's line that "[the giant Nimrod's] face was about as long/And just as wide as St. Peter's cone in Rome," Galileo deduced that Lucifer himself was 2,000 armlengths long. The audience was impressed, and within the year, Galileo had received a three-year appointment to the University of Pisa, the same university that never granted him a degree!

The Leaning Tower of Pisa

At the time that Galileo arrived at the University, some debate had started up on one of Aristotle's "laws" of nature, that heavier objects fell faster than lighter objects. Aristotle's word had been accepted as gospel truth, and there had been few attempts to actually test Aristotle's conclusions by actually conducting an experiment!

According to legend, Galileo decided to try. He needed to be able to drop the objects from a great height. The perfect building was right at hand--the Tower of Pisa, 54 meters tall. Galileo climbed up to the top of the building carrying a variety of balls of varying size and weight, and dumped them off of the top. They all landed at the base of the building at the same time (legend says that the demonstration was witnessed by a huge crowd of students and professors). Aristotle was wrong.

However, Galileo Galilei continued to behave rudely to his colleagues, not a good move for a junior member of the faculty. "Men are like wine flasks," he once said to a group of students. "...look at....bottles with the handsome labels. When you taste them, they are full of air or perfume or rouge. These are bottles fit only to pee into!"Not surprisingly, the University of Pisa chose not to renew Galileo's contract.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

Galileo Galilei moved on to the University of Padua. By 1593, he was desperate in need of additional cash. His father had died, so Galileo was the head of his family, and personally responsible for his family. Debts were pressing down on him, most notably, the dowry for one of his sisters, which was paid in installments over decades (a dowry could be thousands of crowns, and Galileo's annual salary was 180 crowns). Debtor's prison was a real threat if Galileo returned to Florence.

What Galileo needed was to come up with some sort of device that could make him a tidy profit. A rudimentary thermometer (which, for the first time, allowed temperature variations to be measured) and an ingenious device to raise water from aquifers found no market. He found greater success in 1596 with a military compass that could be used to accurately aim cannonballs. A modified civilian version that could be used for land surveying came out in 1597, and ended up earning a fair amount of money for Galileo. It helped his profit margin that 1) the instruments were sold for three times the cost of manufacture, 2) he also offered classes on how to use the instrument, and 3) the actual toolmaker was paid dirt-poor wages.

A good thing. Galileo needed the money to support his siblings, his mistress (a 21 year old with a reputation as a woman of easy habits), and his three children (two daughters and a boy). By 1602, Galileo's name was famous enough to help bring in students to the University, where Galileo was busily experimenting with magnets.

In Venice on a holiday in 1609, Galileo Galilei heard rumors that a Dutch spectacle-maker had invented a device that made distant objects seem near at hand (at first called the spyglass and later renamed the telescope). A patent had been requested, but not yet granted, and the methods were being kept secret, since it was obviously of tremendous military value for Holland.

Galileo Galilei - Spyglass

Galileo Galilei was determined to attempt to construct his own spyglass. After a frantic 24 hours of experimentation, working only on instinct and bits of rumors, never having actually *seen* the Dutch spyglass, he built a 3-power telescope. After some refinement, he brought a 10-power telescope to Venice and demonstrated it to a highly impressed Senate. His salary was promptly raised, and he was honored with proclamations.

Galileo Galilei - The Moon

If he had stopped here, and become a man of wealth and leisure, Galileo Galilei might be a mere footnote in history. Instead, a revolution started when, one fall evening, the scientist trained his telescope on an object in the sky that all people at that time believed must be a perfect, smooth, polished heavenly body--the Moon. To his astonishment, Galileo Galilei viewed a surface that was uneven, rough, and full of cavities and prominences. Many people insisted that Galileo Galilei was wrong. Some of their arguments were very clever, like the mathematician who insisted that even if Galileo was seeing a rough surface on the Moon, that only meant that the entire moon had to be covered in invisible, transparent, smooth crystal.

Galileo Galilei - Jupiter

Months passed, and his telescopes improved. On January 7, 1610, he turned his 30 power telescope towards Jupiter, and found three small, bright stars near the planet. One was off to the west, the other two were to the east, all three in a straight line. The following evening, Galileo once again took a look at Jupiter, and found that all three of the "stars" were now west of the planet, still in a straight line!

Observations over the following weeks lead Galileo to the inescapable conclusion that these small "stars" were actually small satellites that were rotating about Jupiter. If there were satellites that didn't move around the Earth, wasn't it possible that the Earth was not the center of the universe? Couldn't the Copernican idea of the Sun at the center of the solar system be correct?

The Starry Messenger

Galileo Galilei published his findings--as a small book titled The Starry Messenger. 550 copies were published in March of 1610, to tremendous public acclaim and excitement.

Galileo Galilei - Saturn

And there were more discoveries via the new telescope: the appearance of bumps next to the planet Saturn (Galileo thought they were companion stars; the "stars" were actually the edges of Saturn's rings), spots on the Sun's surface (though others had actually seen the spots before), and seeing Venus change from a full disk to a sliver of light.

For Galileo Galilei, saying that the Earth went around the Sun changed everything since he was contradicting the teachings of the Church. While some of the Church's mathematicians wrote that his observations were clearly correct, many members of the Church believed that he must be wrong.

In December of 1613, one of the scientist's friends told him how a powerful member of the nobility said that she could not see how his observations could be true, since they would contradict the Bible. The lady quoted a passage in Joshua where God causes the Sun to stand still and lengthen the day. How could this mean anything other than that the Sun went around the Earth?

Galileo Galilei - Heresy Charges

Galileo Galilei was a religious man, and he agreed that the Bible could never be wrong. However, he said, the interpreters of the Bible could make mistakes, and it was a mistake to assume that the Bible had to be taken literally.

This might have been one of Galileo's major mistakes. At that time, only Church priests were allowed to interpret the Bible, or to define God's intentions. It was absolutely unthinkable for a mere member of the public to do so.

And some of the Church clergy started responding, accusing him of heresy. Some credits went to the Inquisition, the Church court that investigated charges of heresy, and formally accused Galileo Galilei. This was a very serious matter. In 1600, a man named Giordano Bruno was convicted of being a heretic for believing that the earth moved about the Sun, and that there were many planets throughout the universe where life--living creations of God--existed. Bruno was burnt to death.

However, Galileo was found innocent of all charges, and cautioned not to teach the Copernican system. 16 years later, all that would change.

The Final Trial

The following years saw Galileo move on to work on other projects. With his telescope he watched the movements of Jupiter's moons, wrote them up as a list, and then came up with a way to use these measurements as a navigation tool. There was even a contraption that would allow a ship captain to navigate with his hands on the wheel. That is, assuming the captain didn't mind wearing what looked like a horned helmet!

As another amusement, Galileo started writing about ocean tides. Instead of writing his arguments as a scientific paper, he found that it was much more interesting to have an imaginary conversation, or dialogue, between three fictional characters. One character, who would support Galileo's side of the argument, was brilliant. Another character would be open to either side of the argument. The final character, named Simplicio, was dogmatic and foolish, representing all of Galileo's enemies who ignored any evidence that Galileo was right. Soon, he wrote up a similar dialogue called "Dialogue on the Two Great Systems of the World." This book talked about the Copernican system.

"Dialogue" was an immediate hit with the public, but not, of course, with the Church. The pope suspected that he was the model for Simplicio. He ordered the book banned, and also ordered the scientist to appear before the Inquisition in Rome for the crime of teaching the Copernican theory after being ordered not to do so.

Galileo Galilei was 68 years old and sick. Threatened with torture, he publicly confessed that he had been wrong to have said that the Earth moves around the Sun. Legend then has it that after his confession, Galileo quietly whispered "And yet, it moves."

Unlike many less famous prisoners, he was allowed to live under house arrest in his house outside of Florence. He was near one of his daughters, a nun. Until his death in 1642, he continued to investigate other areas of science. Amazingly, he even published a book on force and motion although he had been blinded by an eye infection.

The Story Continues...

The Church eventually lifted the ban on Galileo's Dialogue in 1822--by that time, it was common knowledge that the Earth was not the center of the Universe. Still later, there were statements by the Vatican Council in the early 1960's and in 1979 that implied that Galileo was pardoned, and that he had suffered at the hands of the Church. Finally, in 1992, three years after Galileo Galilei's namesake had been launched on its way to Jupiter, the Vatican formally and publicly cleared Galileo of any wrongdoing.

Sir Isaac Newton

 Introduction

Newton, Sir Isaac (1642-1727), mathematician and physicist, one of the foremost scientific intellects of all time. Born at Woolsthorpe, near Grantham in Lincolnshire, where he attended school, he entered Cambridge University in 1661; he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College in 1667, and Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in 1669. He remained at the university, lecturing in most years, until 1696. Of these Cambridge years, in which Newton was at the height of his creative power, he singled out 1665-1666 (spent largely in Lincolnshire because of plague in Cambridge) as "the prime of my age for invention". During two to three years of intense mental effort he prepared Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy) commonly known as the Principia, although this was not published until 1687.

As a firm opponent of the attempt by King James II to make the universities into Catholic institutions, Newton was elected Member of Parliament for the University of Cambridge to the Convention Parliament of 1689, and sat again in 1701-1702. Meanwhile, in 1696 he had moved to London as Warden of the Royal Mint. He became Master of the Mint in 1699, an office he retained to his death. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1671, and in 1703 he became President, being annually re-elected for the rest of his life. His major work, Opticks, appeared the next year; he was knighted in Cambridge in 1705.

As Newtonian science became increasingly accepted on the Continent, and especially after a general peace was restored in 1714, following the War of the Spanish Succession, Newton became the most highly esteemed natural philosopher in Europe. His last decades were passed in revising his major works, polishing his studies of ancient history, and defending himself against critics, as well as carrying out his official duties. Newton was modest, diffident, and a man of simple tastes. He was angered by criticism or opposition, and harboured resentment; he was harsh towards enemies but generous to friends. In government, and at the Royal Society, he proved an able administrator. He never married and lived modestly, but was buried with great pomp in Westminster Abbey.

Newton has been regarded for almost 300 years as the founding examplar of modern physical science, his achievements in experimental investigation being as innovative as those in mathematical research. With equal, if not greater, energy and originality he also plunged into chemistry, the early history of Western civilization, and theology; among his special studies was an investigation of the form and dimensions, as described in the Bible, of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem.

Optics

In 1664, while still a student, Newton read recent work on optics and light by the English physicists Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke; he also studied both the mathematics and the physics of the French philosopher and scientist René Descartes. He investigated the refraction of light by a glass prism; developing over a few years a series of increasingly elaborate, refined, and exact experiments, Newton discovered measurable, mathematical patterns in the phenomenon of colour. He found white light to be a mixture of infinitely varied coloured rays (manifest in the rainbow and the spectrum), each ray definable by the angle through which it is refracted on entering or leaving a given transparent medium. He correlated this notion with his study of the interference colours of thin films (for example, of oil on water, or soap bubbles), using a simple technique of extreme acuity to measure the thickness of such films. He held that light consisted of streams of minute particles. From his experiments he could infer the magnitudes of the transparent "corpuscles" forming the surfaces of bodies, which, according to their dimensions, so interacted with white light as to reflect, selectively, the different observed colours of those surfaces.

The roots of these unconventional ideas were with Newton by about 1668; when first expressed (tersely and partially) in public in 1672 and 1675, they provoked hostile criticism, mainly because colours were thought to be modified forms of homogeneous white light. Doubts, and Newton's rejoinders, were printed in the learned journals. Notably, the scepticism of Christiaan Huygens and the failure of the French physicist Edmé Mariotte to duplicate Newton's refraction experiments in 1681 set scientists on the Continent against him for a generation. The publication of Opticks, largely written by 1692, was delayed by Newton until the critics were dead. The book was still imperfect: the colours of diffraction defeated Newton. Nevertheless, Opticks established itself, from about 1715, as a model of the interweaving of theory with quantitative experimentation.

Mathematics

In mathematics too, early brilliance appeared in Newton's student notes. He may have learnt geometry at school, though he always spoke of himself as self-taught; certainly he advanced through studying the writings of his compatriots William Oughtred and John Wallis, and of Descartes and the Dutch school. Newton made contributions to all branches of mathematics then studied, but is especially famous for his solutions to the contemporary problems in analytical geometry of drawing tangents to curves (differentiation) and defining areas bounded by curves (integration). Not only did Newton discover that these problems were inverse to each other, but he discovered general methods of resolving problems of curvature, embraced in his "method of fluxions" and "inverse method of fluxions", respectively equivalent to Leibniz's later differential and integral calculus. Newton used the term "fluxion" (from Latin meaning "flow") because he imagined a quantity "flowing" from one magnitude to another. Fluxions were expressed algebraically, as Leibniz's differentials were, but Newton made extensive use also (especially in the Principia) of analogous geometrical arguments. Late in life, Newton expressed regret for the algebraic style of recent mathematical progress, preferring the geometrical method of the Classical Greeks, which he regarded as clearer and more rigorous.

Newton's work on pure mathematics was virtually hidden from all but his correspondents until 1704, when he published, with Opticks, a tract on the quadrature of curves (integration) and another on the classification of the cubic curves. His Cambridge lectures, delivered from about 1673 to 1683, were published in 1707.

The Calculus Priority Dispute

Newton had the essence of the methods of fluxions by 1666. The first to become known, privately, to other mathematicians, in 1668, was his method of integration by infinite series. In Paris in 1675 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz independently evolved the first ideas of his differential calculus, outlined to Newton in 1677. Newton had already described some of his mathematical discoveries to Leibniz, not including his method of fluxions. In 1684 Leibniz published his first paper on calculus; a small group of mathematicians took up his ideas.

In the 1690s Newton's friends proclaimed the priority of Newton's methods of fluxions. Supporters of Leibniz asserted that he had communicated the differential method to Newton, although Leibniz had claimed no such thing. Newtonians then asserted, rightly, that Leibniz had seen papers of Newton's during a London visit in 1676; in reality, Leibniz had taken no notice of material on fluxions. A violent dispute sprang up, part public, part private, extended by Leibniz to attacks on Newton's theory of gravitation and his ideas about God and creation; it was not ended even by Leibniz's death in 1716. The dispute delayed the reception of Newtonian science on the Continent, and dissuaded British mathematicians from sharing the researches of Continental colleagues for a century.

Mechanics and Gravitation 

According to the well-known story, it was on seeing an apple fall in his orchard at some time during 1665 or 1666 that Newton conceived that the same force governed the motion of the Moon and the apple. He calculated the force needed to hold the Moon in its orbit, as compared with the force pulling an object to the ground. He also calculated the centripetal force needed to hold a stone in a sling, and the relation between the length of a pendulum and the time of its swing. These early explorations were not soon exploited by Newton, though he studied astronomy and the problems of planetary motion.

Correspondence with Hooke (1679-1680) redirected Newton to the problem of the path of a body subjected to a centrally directed force that varies as the inverse square of the distance; he determined it to be an ellipse, so informing Edmond Halley in August 1684. Halley's interest led Newton to demonstrate the relationship afresh, to compose a brief tract on mechanics, and finally to write the Principia.

Book I of the Principia states the foundations of the science of mechanics, developing upon them the mathematics of orbital motion round centres of force. Newton identified gravitation as the fundamental force controlling the motions of the celestial bodies. He never found its cause. To contemporaries who found the idea of attractions across empty space unintelligible, he conceded that they might prove to be caused by the impacts of unseen particles.

Book II inaugurates the theory of fluids: Newton solves problems of fluids in movement and of motion through fluids. From the density of air he calculated the speed of sound waves.

Book III shows the law of gravitation at work in the universe: Newton demonstrates it from the revolutions of the six known planets, including the Earth, and their satellites. However, he could never quite perfect the difficult theory of the Moon's motion. Comets were shown to obey the same law; in later editions, Newton added conjectures on the possibility of their return. He calculated the relative masses of heavenly bodies from their gravitational forces, and the oblateness of Earth and Jupiter, already observed. He explained tidal ebb and flow and the precession of the equinoxes from the forces exerted by the Sun and Moon. All this was done by exact computation.

Newton's work in mechanics was accepted at once in Britain, and universally after half a century. Since then it has been ranked among humanity's greatest achievements in abstract thought. It was extended and perfected by others, notably Pierre Simon de Laplace, without changing its basis and it survived into the late 19th century before it began to show signs of failing. See Quantum Theory; Relativity. 

Alchemy and Chemistry 

Newton left a mass of manuscripts on the subjects of alchemy and chemistry, then closely related topics. Most of these were extracts from books, bibliographies, dictionaries, and so on, but a few are original. He began intensive experimentation in 1669, continuing till he left Cambridge, seeking to unravel the meaning that he hoped was hidden in alchemical obscurity and mysticism. He sought understanding of the nature and structure of all matter, formed from the "solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles" that he believed God had created. Most importantly in the "Queries" appended to "Opticks" and in the essay "On the Nature of Acids" (1710), Newton published an incomplete theory of chemical force, concealing his exploration of the alchemists, which became known a century after his death.

Historical and Chronological Studies

Newton owned more books on humanistic learning than on mathematics and science; all his life he studied them deeply. His unpublished "classical scholia"—explanatory notes intended for use in a future edition of the Principia—reveal his knowledge of pre-Socratic philosophy; he read the Fathers of the Church even more deeply. Newton sought to reconcile Greek mythology and record with the Bible, considered the prime authority on the early history of mankind. In his work on chronology he undertook to make Jewish and pagan dates compatible, and to fix them absolutely from an astronomical argument about the earliest constellation figures devised by the Greeks. He put the fall of Troy at 904 BC, about 500 years later than other scholars; this was not well received.

Religious Convictions and personality

Newton also wrote on Judaeo-Christian prophecy, whose decipherment was essential, he thought, to the understanding of God. His book on the subject, which was reprinted well into the Victorian Age, represented lifelong study. Its message was that Christianity went astray in the 4th century AD, when the first Council of Nicaea propounded erroneous doctrines of the nature of Christ. The full extent of Newton's unorthodoxy was recognized only in the present century: but although a critic of accepted Trinitarian dogmas and the Council of Nicaea, he possessed a deep religious sense, venerated the Bible and accepted its account of creation. In late editions of his scientific works he expressed a strong sense of God's providential role in nature.

Publications

Newton published an edition of Geographia generalis by the German geographer Varenius in 1672. His own letters on optics appeared in print from 1672 to 1676. Then he published nothing until the Principia (published in Latin in 1687; revised in 1713 and 1726; and translated into English in 1729). This was followed by Opticks in 1704; a revised edition in Latin appeared in 1706. Posthumously published writings include The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended (1728), The System of the World (1728), the first draft of Book III of the Principia, and Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St John (1733).

Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was born at Ulm, in Württemberg, Germany, on March 14, 1879. Six weeks later the family moved to Munich, where he later on began his schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Later, they moved to Italy and Albert continued his education at Aarau, Switzerland and in 1896 he entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to be trained as a teacher in physics and mathematics. In 1901, the year he gained his diploma, he acquired Swiss citizenship and, as he was unable to find a teaching post, he accepted a position as technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office. In 1905 he obtained his doctor's degree.

During his stay at the Patent Office, and in his spare time, he produced much of his remarkable work and in 1908 he was appointed Privatdozent in Berne. In 1909 he became Professor Extraordinary at Zurich, in 1911 Professor of Theoretical Physics at Prague, returning to Zurich in the following year to fill a similar post. In 1914 he was appointed Director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Physical Institute and Professor in the University of Berlin. He became a German citizen in 1914 and remained in Berlin until 1933 when he renounced his citizenship for political reasons and emigrated to America to take the position of Professor of Theoretical Physics at Princeton. He became a United States citizen in 1940 and retired from his post in 1945.

After World War II, Einstein was a leading figure in the World Government Movement, he was offered the Presidency of the State of Israel, which he declined, and he collaborated with Dr. Chaim Weizmann in establishing the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Einstein always appeared to have a clear view of the problems of physics and the determination to solve them. He had a strategy of his own and was able to visualize the main stages on the way to his goal. He regarded his major achievements as mere stepping-stones for the next advance.

At the start of his scientific work, Einstein realized the inadequacies of Newtonian mechanics and his special theory of relativity stemmed from an attempt to reconcile the laws of mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. He dealt with classical problems of statistical mechanics and problems in which they were merged with quantum theory: this led to an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules. He investigated the thermal properties of light with a low radiation density and his observations laid the foundation of the photon theory of light.

In his early days in Berlin, Einstein postulated that the correct interpretation of the special theory of relativity must also furnish a theory of gravitation and in 1916 he published his paper on the general theory of relativity. During this time he also contributed to the problems of the theory of radiation and statistical mechanics.

In the 1920's, Einstein embarked on the construction of unified field theories, although he continued to work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory, and he persevered with this work in America. He contributed to statistical mechanics by his development of the quantum theory of a monatomic gas and he has also accomplished valuable work in connection with atomic transition probabilities and relativistic cosmology.

After his retirement he continued to work towards the unification of the basic concepts of physics, taking the opposite approach, geometrisation, to the majority of physicists.

Einstein's researches are, of course, well chronicled and his more important works include Special Theory of Relativity (1905), Relativity (English translations, 1920 and 1950), General Theory of Relativity (1916), Investigations on Theory of Brownian Movement (1926), and The Evolution of Physics (1938). Among his non-scientific works, About Zionism (1930), Why War?My Philosophy (1934), and Out of My Later Years (1950) (1933), are perhaps the most important.

Albert Einstein received honorary doctorate degrees in science, medicine and philosophy from many European and American universities. During the 1920's he lectured in Europe, America and the Far East and he was awarded Fellowships or Memberships of all the leading scientific academies throughout the world. He gained numerous awards in recognition of his work, including the Copley Medal of the Royal Society of London in 1925, and the Franklin Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1935.

Einstein's gifts inevitably resulted in his dwelling much in intellectual solitude and, for relaxation, music played an important part in his life. He married Mileva Maric in 1903 and they had a daughter and two sons; their marriage was dissolved in 1919 and in the same year he married his cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, who died in 1936. He died on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, New Jersey.

Charles Robert Darwin

"I have called this principle, by which each slight variation, if useful, is preserved, by the term Natural Selection." 

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Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882), British scientist, who laid the foundation of modern evolutionary theory with his concept of the development of all forms of life through the slow-working process of natural selection. His work was of major influence on the life and earth sciences and on modern thought in general.

Born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, on February 12, 1809, Darwin was the fifth child of a wealthy and sophisticated English family. His maternal grandfather was the successful china and pottery entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood; his paternal grandfather was the well-known 18th-century physician and savant Erasmus Darwin. After graduating from the elite school at Shrewsbury in 1825, young Darwin went to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine. In 1827 he dropped out of medical school and entered the University of Cambridge, in preparation for becoming a clergyman of the Church of England. There he met two stellar figures: Adam Sedgwick, a geologist, and John Stevens Henslow, a naturalist. Henslow not only helped build Darwin's self-confidence but also taught his student to be a meticulous and painstaking observer of natural phenomena and collector of specimens. After graduating from Cambridge in 1831, the 22-year-old Darwin was taken aboard the English survey ship HMS Beagle, largely on Henslow's recommendation, as an unpaid naturalist on a scientific expedition around the world.
Voyage of the Beagle

Darwin's job as naturalist aboard the Beagle gave him the opportunity to observe the various geological formations found on different continents and islands along the way, as well as a huge variety of fossils and living organisms. In his geological observations, Darwin was most impressed with the effect that natural forces had on shaping the earth's surface.
At the time, most geologists adhered to the so-called catastrophist theory that the earth had experienced a succession of creations of animal and plant life, and that each creation had been destroyed by a sudden catastrophe, such as an upheaval or convulsion of the earth's surface (see GEOLOGY: HISTORY OF GEOLOGICAL THOUGHT: 18TH AND 19TH CENTURIES). According to this theory, the most recent catastrophe, Noah's flood, wiped away all life except those forms taken into the ark. The rest were visible only in the form of fossils. In the view of the catastrophists, species were individually created and immutable, that is, unchangeable for all time.

The catastrophist viewpoint (but not the immutability of species) was challenged by the English geologist Sir Charles Lyell in his two-volume work Principles of Geology (1830-33). Lyell maintained that the earth's surface is undergoing constant change, the result of natural forces operating uniformly over long periods.

Aboard the Beagle, Darwin found himself fitting many of his observations into Lyell's general uniformitarian view. Beyond that, however, he realized that some of his own observations of fossils and living plants and animals cast doubt on the Lyell-supported view that species were specially created. He noted, for example, that certain fossils of supposedly extinct species closely resembled living species in the same geographical area. In the Galapagos Islands, off the coast of Ecuador, he also observed that each island supported its own form of tortoise, mockingbird, and finch; the various forms were closely related but differed in structure and eating habits from island to island. Both observations raised the question, for Darwin, of possible links between distinct but similar species.

Theory of Natural Selection

After returning to England in 1836, Darwin began recording his ideas about changeability of species in his Notebooks on the Transmutation of Species. Darwin's explanation for how organisms evolved was brought into sharp focus after he read An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798), by the British economist Thomas Robert Malthus, who explained how human populations remain in balance. Malthus argued that any increase in the availability of food for basic human survival could not match the geometrical rate of population growth. The latter, therefore, had to be checked by natural limitations such as famine and disease, or by social actions such as war.

Darwin immediately applied Malthus's argument to animals and plants, and by 1838 he had arrived at a sketch of a theory of evolution through natural selection (see SPECIES AND SPECIATION). For the next two decades he worked on his theory and other natural history projects. (Darwin was independently wealthy and never had to earn an income.) In 1839 he married his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood, and soon after, moved to a small estate, Down House, outside London. There he and his wife had ten children, three of whom died in infancy.
Darwin's theory was first announced in 1858 in a paper presented at the same time as one by Alfred Russel Wallace, a young naturalist who had come independently to the theory of natural selection. Darwin's complete theory was published in 1859, in On the Origin of Species. Often referred to as the book that shook the world, the Origin sold out on the first day of publication and subsequently went through six editions.

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection is essentially that, because of the food-supply problem described by Malthus, the young born to any species intensely compete for survival. Those young that survive to produce the next generation tend to embody favorable natural variations (however slight the advantage may be)the process of natural selectionand these variations are passed on by heredity. Therefore, each generation will improve adaptively over the preceding generations, and this gradual and continuous process is the source of the evolution of species. Natural selection is only part of Darwin's vast conceptual scheme; he also introduced the concept that all related organisms are descended from common ancestors. Moreover, he provided additional support for the older concept that the earth itself is not static but evolving.

Reactions to the Theory

The reaction to the Origin was immediate. Some biologists argued that Darwin could not prove his hypothesis. Others criticized Darwin's concept of variation, arguing that he could explain neither the origin of variations nor how they were passed to succeeding generations. This particular scientific objection was not answered until the birth of modern genetics in the early 20th century (see HEREDITY; MENDEL'S LAWS). In fact, many scientists continued to express doubts for the following 50 to 80 years. The most publicized attacks on Darwin's ideas, however, came not from scientists but from religious opponents. The thought that living things had evolved by natural processes denied the special creation of humankind and seemed to place humanity on a plane with the animals; both of these ideas were serious contradictions to orthodox theological opinion.

Later Years

Darwin spent the rest of his life expanding on different aspects of problems raised in the Origin. His later booksincluding The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication (1868), The Descent of Man (1871), and The Expression of the Emotions in Animals and Man (1872)were detailed expositions of topics that had been confined to small sections of the Origin. The importance of his work was well recognized by his contemporaries; Darwin was elected to the Royal Society (1839) and the French Academy of Sciences (1878). He was also honored by burial in Westminster Abbey after he died in Down, Kent, on April 19, 1882.

Ilmuwan Muslim Yang Mengubah Peradaban Dunia

Mungkin tidak banyak yang tahu bahwa beberapa penemuan yang mengubah peradaban dunia berasal dari para ilmuwan muslim.Para ilmuwan ini mempunyai kontribusi dalam pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan dan  merupakan temuan awal sebelum dikembangkan oleh ilmuwan Barat lainnya.Penemuan-penemuan ilmuwan muslim ini sempat terlupakan oleh masyarakat dunia.Untuk itu sebuah Yayasan Sains, Teknologi dan Peradaban (The Foundation for Science Technology and Civilisation (FSTC) yang berpusat di London Mengadakan pameran untuk memperlihatkan dan menegaskan kepada publik tentang kontribusi peradaban non-barat yang sudah ada 1000 tahun yang lampau.

 

Apa saja penemuan-penemuan itu?

1. Operasi Bedah

Sekitar tahun 1000, seorang dokter Al Zahrawi mempublikasikan 1500 halaman ensiklopedia berilustrasi tentang operasi bedah yang digunakan di Eropa sebagai referensi medis selama lebih dari 500 tahun. Diantara banyak penemu, Zahrawi yang menggunakan larutan usus kucing menjadi benang jahitan, sebelum menangani operasi kedua untuk memindahkan jahitan pada luka. Dia juga yang dilaporkan melakukan operasi caesar dan menciptakan sepasang alat jepit pembedahan.

2. Kopi

Saat ini warga dunia meminum sajian khas tersebut tetapi, kopi pertama kali dibuat di Yaman pada sekitar abad ke-9. Pada awalnya kopi membantu kaum sufi tetap terjaga ibadah larut malam. Kemudian dibawa ke Kairo oleh sekelompok pelajat yang kemudian kopi disukai oleh seluruh kerajaan. Pada abad ke-13 kopi menyeberang ke Turki, tetapi baru pada abad ke-16 ketika kacang mulai direbus di Eropa, kopi dibawa ke Italia oleh pedagang Venesia.

3. Mesin Terbang

Abbas ibn Firnas adalah orang pertama yang mencoba membuat konstruksi sebuah pesawat terbang dan menerbangkannya. Di abad ke-9 dia mendesain sebuah perangkat sayap dan secara khusus membentuk layaknya kostum burung. Dalam percobaannya yang terkenal di Cordoba Spanyol, Firnas terbang tinggi untuk beberapa saat sebelum kemudian jatuh ke tanah dan mematahkan tulang belakangnya. Desain yang dibuatnya secara tidak terduga menjadi inspirasi bagi seniman Italia Leonardo da Vinci ratusan tahun kemudian.

4. Universitas

Pada tahun 859 seorang putri muda bernama Fatima al-Firhi mendirikan sebuah universitas tingkat pertama di Fez Maroko. Saudara perempuannya Miriam mendirikan masjid indah secara bersamaan menjadi masjid dan universitas al-Qarawiyyin dan terus beroperasi selama 1.200 tahun kemudian. Hassani mengatakan dia berharap orang akan ingat bahwa belajar adalah inti utama tradisi Islam dan cerita tentang al-Firhi bersaudara akan menginspirasi wanita muslim di mana pun di dunia.

5. Aljabar

Kata aljabar berasal dari judul kitab matematikawan terkenal Persia abad ke-9 ‘Kitab al-Jabr Wal-Mugabala’, yang diterjemahkan ke dalam buku ‘The Book of Reasoning and Balancing’. Membangun akar sistem Yunani dan Hindu, aljabar adalah sistem pemersatu untuk nomor rasional, nomor tidak rasional dan gelombang magnitudo. Matematikawan lainnya Al-Khwarizmi juga yang pertama kali memperkenalkan konsep angka menjadi bilangan yang bisa menjadi kekuatan.

6. Optik

“Banyak kemajuan penting dalam studi optik datang dari dunia muslm,” ujar Hassani. Diantara tahun 1.000 Ibn al-Haitham membuktikan bahwa manusia melihat obyek dari refleksi cahaya dan masuk ke mata, mengacuhkan teori Euclid dan Ptolemy bahwa cahaya dihasilkan dari dalam mata sendiri. Fisikawan hebat muslim lainnya juga menemukan fenomena pengukuran kamera di mana dijelaskan bagaimana mata gambar dapat terlihat dengan koneksi antara optik dan otak.

7. Musik

Musisi muslim memiliki dampak signifikan di Eropa. Di antara banyak instrumen yang hadir ke Eropa melalui timur tengah adalah lute dan rahab, nenek moyang biola. Skala notasi musik modern juga dikatakan berasal dari alfabet Arab.

8. Sikat Gigi

Menurut Hassani, Nabi Muhammad SAW mempopulerkan penggunaan sikat gigi pertama kali pada tahun 600. Menggunakan ranting pohon Miswak, untuk membersihkan gigi dan menyegarkan napas. Substansi kandungan di dalam Miswak juga digunakan dalam pasta gigi modern.

9. Engkol

Banyak dasar sistem otomatis modern pertama kali berasal dari dunia muslim, termasuk pemutar yang menghubungkan sistem. Dengan mengkonversi gerakan memutar dengan gerakan lurus, pemutar memungkinankan obyek berat terangkat relatif lebih mudah. Teknologi tersebut ditemukan oleh Al-jazari pada abad ke-12, kemudian digunakan dalam penggunaan sepeda hingga kini.

Kekuatan Mistis Gunung Merapi

NAMA gunung Merapi sudah cukup populer di telinga masyarakat Indonesia. Sesuatu yang berkaitan keberadaan gunung Merapi kerap dikaitkan dengan hal-hal berbau misteri, di antaranya keberadaan makhluk-makhluk gaib penguasa dan penghuni gunung Merapi. Hal ini tidaklah berlebihan, karena hasil investigasi membuktikan bahwa masyarakat setempat yakin kalau penghuni dan penguasa gunung Merapi memang ada.

Mereka memanggilnya dengan sebutan Eyang Merapi. "Bapak lihat bukit kecil di atas itu? Itu namanya gunung Wutah, gapuranya atau pintu gerbangnya kraton Eyang Merapi". Sebaris kalimat dengan nada bangga itu meluncur begitu saja dari Bangat, seorang penduduk asli Kinahrejo Cangkrinagan Sleman, sesaat setelah kami menapaki sebuah ara tandus berbatu tanpa hiasan pepohonan sebatang pun.

Masyarakat setempat meyakini, kawasan wingit yang diapit oleh dua buah gundukan kecil itu memang dikenal sebagai pelatarannya keraton Eyang Merapi. Untuk naik ke sana, diingatkan agar uluk salam, atau sekadar minta permisi begitu di atasnya. "Kulo nuwun Eyang, kulo ingkang sowan, sumangga silakna rikma niro," imbuh istri Bangat, Suharjiyah, sembari menuntun kami untuk menirukan lafal tersebut.

Tenyu saja, imbauan sepasang suami istri yang tubuhnya kian keriput dimakan usia itu bukan tanpa alasan. Menurutnya, sang penguasa kraton Merapi sangat tersinggung bila ada pendatang baru yang neko-neko (berbuat macam-macam), pethakilan (bertingkah tidak senonoh) tanpa memberi uluk salam (permisi). Hal-hal tersebut jika dilanggar akibatnya akan sangat fatal. "Mereka yang sama sekali tidak mengubris pakem kultur tersebut jelas akibatnya akan fatal, biasanya akan tersesat hingga kecebur jurang," tegas Bangat.

Satu hal yang perlu diingat, setiap pendatang baru di kawasan Kinahrejo niscaya bakal celaka bila sampai menyakiti hati penduduk setempat. "Nantinya bisa-bisa kuwalat jadinya," imbuh Bangat. Sekejam itukah? "Sebenarnya sih enggak. Cuma memang, Eyang Merapi itu nggak suka kalau kampung sini (Kinahrejo, Red) jadi sasaran perbuatan yang nggak terpuji. Masalahnya, warga sini sebetulnyakan masih termasuk rakyatnya kraton Eyang Merapi. Nggak percaya? Coba saja Bapak perhatikan dan tanyakan kepada warga sini, apa pernah wilayah ini terkena semburan lahar panas Merapi? Pasti jawab mereka tidak," terang Bangat.

Ditambahkan, beberapa warga setempat menggambarkan sosok penguasa kraton Merapi dengan makhluk yang menyeramkan, namun berhati mulia dan tidak bermaksud jahat, "Dia adalah pengayom masyarakat setempat," tandas Suharjiyah. Besarnya rasa percaya masyarakat setempat terhadap keberadaan Eyang Merapi membuat mereka yakin bahwa akan hal-hal yang mistis yang terjadi menimpa masyarakat. Misalnya, pintu gerbang kramat, penduduk yang tinggal di lereng gunung Merapi itu percaya bahwa pintu gerbang tersebut penangkal dari segala marabahaya.

Pintu gerbang yang berdiri selama 9 abad itu nyaris pernah tersentuh bencana gunung Merapi. Padahal secara teknis daerah tersebut termasuk daftar daerah bahaya. Hal itu juga tak lepas dari keberadaan dua buah bukit (Wutah dan Kendit) yang berfungsi sebagai benteng desa-desa sekitar Kinahrejo. "Bukit Kendit maupun bukit Wutah itu kan masih masuk dalam wilayah kekuasan Eyang Merapi. Itukan pasebannya (tempat untuk menghadap raja) kraton Eyang Merapi. Jadi nggak mungkin Eyang akan tega membinasakan orang yang memang sudah lama mendiami tempat sekitar itu," Bangat menjelaskan lebih jauh.

Memang, dibandingkan penduduk desa lainnya, nasib penghuni desa Kinahrejo dan sekitarnya termasuk yang beruntung. Selain merupakan desa yang nyaris selalu luput dari ancaman bahaya lahar panas Merapi, desa yang konon termasuk desa kesayangan Eyang Merapi itu juga menjadi sebuah reresentasi dari sebuah suasana kehidupan yang serba nyaman dan tentram.

Tak aneh kalau dikemudian hari kerap muncul sindirin dikalangan penduduk setempat kepada warga diwilayah barat daya gunung Merapi yang kerap jadi langganan bencana lahar. "Kalau ingin hidup tenang tentram, pindahlah kemari. Eyang Merapi kan selalu melindungi kami," ujar Wardiyah, salah seorang warga yang mengaku penduduk asli desa Kinahrejo.

Ucapan Wardiyah tersebut memang ada benarnya. Penduduk desa Kinahrejo seolah telah mendapat garansi dari Eyang Merapi. Pendek kata, selagi mereka patuh terhadap segala peraturan yang ada misalnya selalu mempersembahkan bulu bekti berupa persembahan sesajian serta selalu melakukan ritual labuhan setiap tahunnya, mereka yakin dan optimis bahwa mereka akan senantiasa terhindar dari ancaman letusan Merapi. 

Sumber: http://www.indospiritual.com/artikel_kekuatan-mistis-gunung-merapi.html