Ivry-sur-Seine is a town and commune in the southeast suburb of Paris, France. It is in the Île-de-France region and the Val-de-Marne department. About 56,000 people lived there in 2006.
The engineering schools École spéciale de mécanique et électricité, École supérieure d'informatique, électronique, automatique and Institut polytechnique des sciences avancées are located at Ivry-sur-Seine.
The schools École des technologies numériques appliquées and IONIS School of Technology and Management are also located in the commune.
Doubochinski's pendulum
Doubochinski's pendulum is an experiment with an oscillator and a magnet. The most simple case is that of a pendulum that interacts with an oscillator. The pendulum (with a magnet at the end) will swing at a frequency of one swing per period of 1-2 seconds. A stationary electromagnet is placed under the equilibrium point of the pendulum. The electromagnet is then supplied with an alternating current of a fixed frequency, of between 10 and 10.000 Hz.
When the pendulum is released at any location, its movement will then evolve to stop at a height which depends on the frequency of the current of the electromagnet. This phenomenon was first discovered by the brothers Danil and Yakov Doubochinski in 1968–69.
Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale is an Italian comic opera in three acts. Gaetano Donizetti wrote the music. Giovanni Ruffini wrote the libretto (story and words).
"Don Pasquale" was the 64th of the 66 operas Donizetti wrote. It is about an old bachelor who wants to marry. The opera was first performed on January 3, 1843 at the Comédie-Italienne in Paris, France.
It was first performed in Italy at La Scala in Milan on April 17, 1843. In London, England, it was first performed on June 29, 1843, and in the United States on January 7, 1845 in New Orleans.
Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago at the southern tip of South America. The Magellan Strait sepearates it from the South American Mainland. The archipelago consists of a big island, Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego and a number of smaller islands. The land area of the archipelago is 73.746 square kilometers. With about 47.000 square kilometers, Isla Grande takes roughly half of the total land mass. The Archipelago (and the main island) is divided between Argentina and Chile. About 127.000 people live in the part belonging to Argentina, about 8.000 in that belonging to Chile. The Argentine part is called Tierra del Fuego Province, the Chilenan part has the name Magellanes. The biggest cities on the main island are Rio Grande, 57.000 people, and Ushuaia in the Argentine part, and Porvenir with 5.700 inhabitants in the Chilenan part. Puerto Williams, with 2300 people, is the most southern city in the world.
Mons Meg
Mons Meg is a mediaeval bombard made in 1449. It is now at Edinburgh Castle, Scotland. In contrast to modern shells, which are explosive, these older cannons fired solid balls. Mons Meg fired balls of iron.
It seems, from the accounts of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, that it was made to his order around 1449 and sent as a gift eight years later to King James II of Scotland, with other artillery supplies. Mons Meg weighs , is in length, and has a calibre of . The final cost of the gun was £1,536. 2s.
The bombard was made from long bars of iron, hooped with rings and fused into one mass. The Duke's artillery maker constructed it, and it was tested at Mons, Wallonia, in June 1449. The Duke did not take delivery until 1453. The Duke decided to help the Scots against the English, and sent it to James II. James imported a lot of artillery from continental Europe during his reign. He used it against his enemies in Scotland, such as the Earl of Douglas. James died as a result of an exploding cannon used in the siege of Roxburgh Castle in 1460.
Another story suggests Mons Meg was made in order to help James II in the 1452 siege of Threave Castle in Kirkcudbright, when the Clan MacLellan used it to batter the castle. This version has little support.
The calibre cannon accepted balls that weighed about . It could only be fired 8-10 times a day due to the tremendous heat generated by the huge powder charge. In early years the gun, like the other royal cannon, was painted with red-lead to keep it from rusting. This cost 30 shillings in June 1539.
From the 1540s Meg was retired from active service and was fired only on ceremonial occasions from Edinburgh Castle, from where shot could be found up to two miles away. When Mons was fired on 3 July 1558, workmen were paid to find and retrieve the shot from Wardie Mure, near the River Forth. The salute marked the marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots to the French Dauphin.
The gun was fired in 1680 to celebrate the arrival of James, Duke of Albany and York, later King James II of England and VII of Scotland. The barrel burst. An English cannoneer had loaded the charge and many Scots believed that the damage was done on purpose, since the English had no cannon as big as this. The incident was also seen as a bad omen for the future King.
The cannon was left outside Foog's Gate at Edinburgh Castle. It was next taken, with other disused ordnance, to the Tower of London in 1754, but was returned to the Castle in 1829, after a campaign by the author Sir Walter Scott. It was restored, and now sits outside St. Margaret's Chapel.
Castelnaudary
Castelnaudary () is a commune in the Aude department in the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France.
A campus of the École nationale de l'aviation civile (French civil aviation university) is located at Castelnaudary.
Schwerer Gustav
Schwerer Gustav (English: "Heavy Gustaf, or Great Gustaf") and Dora were the names of two huge World War II German 80 cm K (E) railway siege guns.
The two guns were developed in the late 1930s by Krupp, the famous German arms manufacturer. Their purpose was to destroy heavy fortifications, especially in the French Maginot Line. The guns weighed nearly 1,350 tonnes, and could fire shells weighing seven tonnes to a range of .
Although they were intended for World War II, they were not ready for action when the Wehrmacht outflanked the Maginot line by sweeping through the low country (Belgium) to start the Battle of France. However, they were ready in Autumn 1941, after the Wehrmacht invaded the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa). Gustav was used at the siege of Sevastopol in the summer of 1942. By the end of the siege on 4 July the city of Sevastopol lay in ruins, and 30,000 tons of artillery ammunition had been fired. Gustav had fired 48 rounds and worn out its original barrel, which had already fired around 250 rounds during testing and development. The gun was fitted with the spare barrel and the original was sent back to Krupp's factory in Essen for relining.
Both Gustav and Dora were moved to Leningrad, and may have been intended for Warsaw. Gustav was eventually captured by US troops and cut up, whilst Dora was destroyed near the end of the war to avoid capture by the Red Army.
The Schwerer Gustav was the largest calibre rifled weapon in the history of artillery to see actual combat. It fired the heaviest shells of any artillery piece. A few other huge guns were never fired in anger: the French "Monster Mortar" (36 French inches; 975mm), the British Mallet's Mortar (36 inch; 914 mm) and the American Little David mortar (36 inch; 910 mm).
Dominion of Newfoundland
The Dominion of Newfoundland was a British Dominion from 1907 to 1949. It was in northeastern North America along the Atlantic coast. It was made up of the island of Newfoundland and Labrador on the mainland.