Monday, May 31, 2004

Amplitude

In physics, the maximum displacement or distance moved by a point on a vibrating body or wave measured from its equilibrium position. It is equal to one-half the length of the vibration path. The amplitude of a pendulum is thus one-half the distance that the bob traverses in moving from one side to the other. Waves are generated by vibrating sources, their amplitude being

Saturday, May 29, 2004

Poznan

Beginning as a small stronghold in the 9th century, Poznan became the capital of Poland (with Gniezno) and the residence of Poland's first two sovereigns. The first Polish cathedral was erected there

Chemical Compound, Preparation

Thioketones are usually prepared through reaction of ketones with phosphorus sulfur reagents such as Lawesson's reagent, Ar2P2S4 (Figure 50). Xanthates (Greek xanthos, “yellow,” from the colour of their copper salts), thiocarbonyl derivatives of carbonates, ROC(=S)OR, are prepared from alcohols and carbon disulfide. This reaction is used to produce a soluble form of cellulose

Friday, May 28, 2004

Sun Ra

Sun Ra, who claimed to have been born on the planet Saturn, grew up in Birmingham, studied piano under noted teacher Fess Wheatley, and attended Alabama Agricultural

Thursday, May 27, 2004

Rocky Mountains, National parks, forests, and recreational areas

Many of North America's finest national parks, national monuments, and wilderness areas are in the ranges of the Rocky Mountains and in the Colorado Plateau. To these areas of natural beauty have been added such large recreation facilities as the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, located on either side of Lake Powell in Utah and Arizona, and Flaming Gorge National

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Chanel, Gabrielle

Byname  Coco   French dress designer who ruled over Parisian haute couture for almost six decades. Her elegantly casual designs inspired women of fashion to abandon complicated, uncomfortable clothes and to adopt her now-classic innovations—i.e., jersey dresses and suits, bell-bottom trousers, bobbed hair, trench coats, turtleneck sweaters, costume jewelry,

Monday, May 24, 2004

Die-casting

Forming metal objects by injecting molten metal under pressure into dies, or molds. An early and important use of the technique was in the Mergenthaler Linotype machine (1884) to give line-long combinations of letters, but the appearance of the mass-production automobile assembly line gave die-casting its real impetus. Great precision is possible, and products range

Mclachlan, Alexander

Scottish-born poet, called by some the Burns of Canada for his Scots dialect poetry, much of which deals with the homesickness of Scots immigrants. McLachlan was the foremost among a number of such Scottish bards, whose themes of nostalgia for Scotland appear to be literary conventions rather than original

Saturday, May 22, 2004

Rif War

By the Treaty of Fez (1912), Spain had been awarded the mountainous zones around Melilla and Ceuta, in Morocco. The two zones had few, if any, roads and were separated by the Bay of Alhucemas, making communications and development difficult. In 1920 the Spanish commissioner, General Dámaso Berenguer, decided

Buddhism, Sa-skya-pa, Bka'-brgyud-pa, and related schools

The Sa-skya-pa order traces

Thursday, May 20, 2004

Caribbean Sea

Suboceanic basin of the western Atlantic Ocean, lying between 9° to 22° N and 89° to 60° W. It is approximately 1,063,000 square miles (2,754,000 square kilometres) in extent. To the south it is bounded by the coasts of Venezuela, Colombia, and Panama; to the west by Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Belize, and the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico; to the north by the Greater Antilles islands of Cuba, Hispaniola,

Korea, South, Flag Of

The need for a national flag arose in Korea in the late 19th century when, under pressure from its powerful neighbours, China and Japan, Korea gradually began to open its borders to outside influences. Traditional symbols were incorporated in the design of the new flag, adopted in August 1882, which has continued as the basic pattern ever since. The white background is for

Wednesday, May 19, 2004

Outlawry

Act of putting a person beyond the protection of the law for his refusal to become amenable to the court having legal jurisdiction. In the past, this deprivation of legal benefits was invoked when a defendant or other person was in civil or criminal contempt of court; and, in cases of alleged treason or the commission of a felony (referred to as major outlawry), it amounted

Monday, May 17, 2004

Van Rensselaer, Mariana Alley Griswold

Mariana Griswold, the daughter of a prosperous mercantile family, was educated privately at home and in Europe. She married Schuyler Van Rensselaer in 1873, and the couple lived in New Brunswick, New Jersey, until 1884, when

Sunday, May 16, 2004

Bioclimatology

Branch of climatology that deals with the effects of the physical environment on living organisms over an extended period of time. Although Hippocrates touched on these matters 2,000 years ago in his treatise on Air, Waters, and Places, the science of bioclimatology is relatively new. It developed into a significant field of study during the 1960s owing largely to a growing

Friday, May 14, 2004

Metallophone

China had such instruments by the 7th century. Metallophones had reached northern Europe from Indonesia

Chandela

Also spelled  Candella,   Rajput clan of Gond origin that for some centuries ruled Bundelkhand in north-central India and fought against the early Muslim invaders. The first Chandela is thought to have ruled early in the 9th century AD. Chandela dominion extended from the River Jumna in the north to the region of Saugor (Sagar) and from the Dhasan River to the west to the Vindhya Hills. Their strongholds

Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Robbins, Jerome

Original surname  Rabinowitz  one of the most popular and imaginative American choreographers of the 20th century. Robbins was first known for his skillful use of contemporary American themes in ballets and Broadway and Hollywood musicals. He won acclaim for highly innovative ballets structured within the traditional framework of classical

Earth Exploration

Geophysical

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Yahya (mahmud Al-mutawakkil)

When Yahya was a child, Yemen was a province of the Ottoman Empire. His youth was spent in the service of his father's administration, and, when his father died in 1904, Yahya succeeded him as imam. The Yemenis had always resented Turkish rule, and Yahya was soon able to assemble a potent military force. Sporadic warfare lasted until 1911, when he was

Sunday, May 09, 2004

Zamora

Capital of Zamora province, in the autonomous community (region) of Castile-León, northwestern Spain. It lies along the northern bank of the Duero (Portuguese Douro) River, northwest of Madrid. The city occupies a rocky height overlooking the Duero, a little below its confluence with the Valderaduey River. In the early period of the Christian reconquest (8th–11th century)

Saturday, May 08, 2004

Genet

Any of about five species of lithe, catlike carnivores of the genus Genetta, family Viverridae. Genets are elongate, short-legged animals with long, tapering tails; pointed noses; large, rounded ears; and retractile claws. Coloration varies among species but usually is pale yellowish or grayish, marked with dark spots and stripes; the tail is banded black and

Ansbach

Formerly  Anspach,   city, Bayern Land (state), southern Germany, on the Rezat River, southwest of Nürnberg. It originated around the Benedictine monastery of Onolzbach (founded 748) and was sold to a Franconian branch of the Hohenzollern line (later margraves of Brandenburg-Ansbach-Bayreuth) in 1331. It passed to Prussia in 1791 and to Bavaria in 1806. Queen Caroline, consort of George II of Great Britain, was

Thursday, May 06, 2004

Athetosis

Slow, purposeless, and involuntary movements of the hands, feet, face, tongue, and neck (as well as other muscle groups). The fingers are separately flexed and extended in an entirely irregular way. The hands as a whole are also moved, and the arms, toes, and feet may be affected. The condition is usually caused by malfunctioning of the basal ganglia of the cerebrum. The movements

Wednesday, May 05, 2004

Earth Sciences, Properties and structure of the atmosphere

Less than a year after the space age began with the launching of the Soviet Sputnik I in 1957, the U.S. satellite Explorer I was sent into orbit with a Geiger counter for measuring the intensity of cosmic radiation at different levels above the ground. At altitudes around 1,000 kilometres this instrument ceased to function due to saturation by charged particles. This and subsequent

Tuesday, May 04, 2004

Stradella, Alessandro

Stradella apparently lived for periods in Modena, Venice, Rome, and Florence. In Turin in 1677 an attempt was made to murder him, for reasons that are not known, though it was believed to be at the instigation of a Venetian senator with whose fiancée Stradella had eloped. A document in Modena confirms

Monday, May 03, 2004

Table Tennis

In 1995 the table tennis world championships returned to China in two senses: they took place in Tianjin, and all seven events were won by China, as they had been in 1981. Thus ended Sweden's domination of the men's team event (in 1989, 1991, and 1993) and the run of European triumphs in the men's singles over the same period. The world champions were: men's singles, Kong Linghui; women's singles, Deng Yaping;

Hadramawt

Also spelled  Hadhramaut  ancient South Arabian kingdom that occupied what are now southern and southeastern Yemen and the present-day Sultanate of Oman (Muscat and Oman). Hadramawt maintained its political independence until late in the 3rd century AD, when it was conquered by the kingdom of Saba'.

Sunday, May 02, 2004

Ramakrishna Mission

The society was founded in Calcutta by Vivekananda (q.v.) in 1897 with a twofold purpose: to spread the teachings of Vedanta as embodied in the life