This date in 1724 was the birthdate of Immanuel Kant, German philosopher. 10 things you might not know about him:
He was born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He was the fourth of nine children, and the eldest to survive. He came from a line of saddlers – his father and both his grandfathers were in the saddlery business.
His parents gave him the name Emmanuel, but after learning Hebrew, he changed it to Immanuel.
The family were part of the Pietist movement, a branch of the Lutheran church. They believed in striving for piety and morality, and in hard work. Their paster’s influence allowed Immanuel to study at the best school in town, the Friedrich College. The school day began at 6am, six days a week, and prayers were said before every lesson. They studied Latin, theology, mathematics, music, Greek, French, Polish and Hebrew. There were no holidays and the only day off was Sunday. No natural sciences were taught, though. Kant only learned those once he was at university.
It seems he soon caught up in physics and astronomy, though. He theorised that the Solar System was condensed from a single cloud of gas, that the Moon's gravity would slow down Earth's spin, and that the Milky Way was a large disc of stars. We now know the latter theory was correct.
Kant never travelled more than sixty miles from his birthplace. He declined an invitation to become a professor in Berlin because he didn’t feel his health was up to it.
When his father died in 1746, he had to drop out of university and work as a tutor in order to make ends meet and support his family. He taught many subjects including Mathematics, Physics, philosophy and physical geography, but was never well off.
He never married and it’s likely he died a virgin. It seems he had little to do with women, even the sisters he was supporting financially. He never visited them, and when one of them dropped by his house when he had guests, he apologised for her bad manners.
In his later years, Kant kept such a strictly ordered routine that his neighbours could set their Clocks by his daily walks.
His health was never good. He suffered from deformities of the shoulders and chest and his head was too large. He took many drugs to alleviate his problems but they tended to make things worse. One of his self-medications was to drink half a bottle of red Wine every evening.
He died on February 12, 1804 aged 79. His last words were “Es ist gut” (It is good).
The six richest people in Britain decide to hold a contest to settle the question of which of them is most successful. It will be a gladiator style contest with each entrant fielding a team of ten super-powered combatants. Entrepreneur Llew Powell sets out to put together his team, which includes his former lover, an employee of his company with a fascinating hobby, two refugees from another dimension (a lonely giant and a drunken sailor), two sisters bound together by a promise, a diminutive doctor, a former Tibetan monk initiate and two androids with a history. As the team train together, alliances form, friendships and more develop, while others find the past is not easy to leave behind.
Meanwhile, a ruthless race of aliens has its eyes on the Earth. Already abducting and enslaving humans, they work towards the final invasion which would destroy life on Earth as we know it. Powell’s group, Combat Team Alpha, stumble upon one of the wormholes the aliens use to travel to Earth and witness for themselves the horrors in store if the aliens aren’t stopped. Barely escaping with their lives, they realise there are more important things to worry about than a fighting competition.
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