Saturday, October 30, 2004

Encyclopaedia

For more than 2,000 years encyclopaedias have existed as summaries of extant scholarship in forms comprehensible to their readers. The word at first meant a circle or a complete system of learning - that is, an all-around education.

Friday, October 29, 2004

Lockport

City, seat (1822) of Niagara county, western New York, U.S. It lies 25 miles (40 km) northeast of Buffalo. It was founded in 1821 and grew around the series of five double locks (1847) of the Erie Canal built to overcome a difference of about 60 feet (18 metres) between the levels of Lake Erie and the Genesee River. Two modern locks (1918) of the New York State Canal System replaced one of the sets of five locks; the

Thursday, October 28, 2004

Lockport

City, seat (1822) of Niagara county, western New York, U.S. It lies 25 miles (40 km) northeast of Buffalo. It was founded in 1821 and grew around the series of five double locks (1847) of the Erie Canal built to overcome a difference of about 60 feet (18 metres) between the levels of Lake Erie and the Genesee River. Two modern locks (1918) of the New York State Canal System replaced one of the sets of five locks; the

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

Shanghai, Climate

The city's maritime location fosters a mild climate characterized by minimal seasonal contrast. The average annual temperature is about 58� F (14� C); the July maximum averages about 80� F (27� C), and the average January minimum is about 37� F (3� C). About 45 inches (1,140 millimetres) of precipitation fall annually, with the heaviest rainfall in June and the lightest in December.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Hand, Learned

In full� Billings Learned Hand � American jurist whose tough and sometimes profound mind, philosophical skepticism, and faith in the United States were employed throughout a record tenure as a federal judge (52 years, from April 10, 1909, until his death). Although he was never a justice of the Supreme Court, he is generally considered to have been a greater judge than all but a

Monday, October 25, 2004

Hand, Learned

In full� Billings Learned Hand � American jurist whose tough and sometimes profound mind, philosophical skepticism, and faith in the United States were employed throughout a record tenure as a federal judge (52 years, from April 10, 1909, until his death). Although he was never a justice of the Supreme Court, he is generally considered to have been a greater judge than all but a

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Forbach

Town, Moselle d�partement, Lorraine region, northeastern France, just southwest of Saarbr�cken, Ger. The town, which has an important cokery and manufactures mining equipment, is at the edge of the Saar Coal Basin. Remains of the medieval castle of the counts of Forbach crown a nearby hill (Schlossberg). Forbach was the scene of a French defeat (Aug. 6, 1870) during the Franco-German

Saturday, October 23, 2004

Davidson College

Private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Davidson, North Carolina, U.S. It is a liberal arts college with bachelor's degree programs in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences and is affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Junior-year students can study at the University of Tours in Tours, France, or the Julius Maximilian University in W

Friday, October 22, 2004

Amon

Amon may have been originally a local deity at Khmun (Hermopolis) in Middle Egypt; his cult reached Thebes, where he became the patron of the pharaohs by the reign of Mentuhotep I (2008 - 1957 BC). At that date he was already identified with the sun god Re of Heliopolis and, as Amon-Re, was received as a national god. Represented in human form,

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Low Comedy

Dramatic or literary entertainment with no underlying purpose except to provoke laughter by boasting, boisterous jokes, drunkenness, scolding, fighting, buffoonery, and other riotous activity. Used either alone or added as comic relief to more serious forms, low comedy has origins in the comic improvisations of actors in ancient Greek and Roman comedy. Low comedy

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Cold-bloodedness

Also called �Poikilothermy, Ectothermy, or Heterothermy, � the state of having a variable body temperature that is usually only slightly higher than the environmental temperature. This state distinguishes fishes, amphibians, reptiles, and invertebrate animals from warm-blooded, or homoiothermic, animals (birds and mammals). Because of their dependence upon environmental warmth for metabolic functioning, the distribution

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Hale, Edward Everett

A grandnephew of the Revolutionary hero Nathan Hale and a nephew of Edward Everett, the orator, Hale trained on his father's newspaper, the Boston Daily Advertiser, and turned early to writing. For 70 years newspaper articles, historical

Monday, October 18, 2004

Fairchild, Mary Salome Cutler

Salome Cutler graduated from Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (now Mount Holyoke College) in South Hadley, Massachusetts, in 1875 and taught there from 1876 to 1878. After a period of ill health, she became interested in the

Sunday, October 17, 2004

Fairchild, Mary Salome Cutler

International cooperative agency of Lutheran churches, organized at Lund, Swed., in 1947. It developed from the Lutheran World Convention, which held conventions in 1923, 1929, and 1935. The effectiveness of the Lutheran World Convention during the war years was hampered because it had no constitution or defined organization. At the Lund conference in 1947 the Lutheran World Convention

Friday, October 15, 2004

Condom

Contraceptive device consisting of a sheath that fits over the penis and that is intended to prevent the escape of semen into the vagina. It is made of very thin, flexible rubber or a rubberlike plastic (latex). The condom has long been used as protection against venereal infections and other sexually transmitted diseases, and by the 17th century it was utilized as a contraceptive

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Alciphron

Rhetorician who wrote a collection of fictitious letters, a form of literature popular in his day. More than 100 of the letters have survived. The background of them all is the Athens of the 4th century BC, and the imaginary writers are farmers, fishermen, and courtesans. The material of the letters is largely derived from the writers of the so-called

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

Yakushi-ji

Temple complex dedicated to Yakushi, the Healing Buddha, in Nara, Japan. It was established about 690 outside Nara, and in 718 it was refounded within the city. The only one of the original buildings to have survived is the three-storied eastern pagoda, which is one of the finest examples of religious architecture of the Nara period (AD 710 - 784). Yakushi-ji has many treasures of Japanese

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

Tigereye

Also spelled �Tiger's-eye, � semiprecious quartz gem displaying chatoyancy, a vertical luminescent band like that of a cat's eye. Veins of parallel, blue asbestos (crocidolite) fibres are first altered to iron oxides and then replaced by silica. The gem has a rich yellow to yellow-brown or brown colour and, when polished, a fine golden lustre. The best stones come from Griqualand West, S.Af. Hawk's-eye

Monday, October 11, 2004

Biblical Literature, Spanish versions

Nothing is known from earlier than the 13th century when James I of Aragon in 1233 proscribed the possession of the Bible in �romance� (the Spanish

Sunday, October 10, 2004

Biblical Literature, Spanish versions

A soft, silvery-white or grayish metal in Group IVa of the periodic table. Lead is very malleable, ductile, and dense and is a poor conductor of electricity. Known in antiquity and believed by the alchemists to be the oldest of metals, lead is highly durable and resistant to corrosion, as is indicated by the continuing use of lead water pipes installed by the ancient

Saturday, October 09, 2004

China, Cultural change

These great political and socioeconomic changes were accompanied by intellectual ferment, as the people tried to adjust themselves to a rapidly changing world. Ideas about the proper relationships between members of society were naturally questioned when the old feudal order was shaken; and, in this period, the great teacher Confucius elaborated the social

Friday, October 08, 2004

Italian Literature, Poetry after World War II

Paradoxically, of all the forms of writing, poetry seems to be the form most thriving, although one late 20th-century critic remarked that there may be more poets in Italy than readers of poetry. Furthermore, the more recent the author, the more arguable his or her place in the canon. An authoritative 1,200-page anthology by two experts in the field, poet Maurizio Cucchi and critic

Thursday, October 07, 2004

Displacement Law

In physics, any of the statements (originally formulated in 1913) that radioactive decay produces daughter atoms whose position in the periodic table of the chemical elements is shifted from that of their parents: two lower for alpha decay and one higher for negative beta decay. See radioactive series.

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Babson College

Private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Wellesley, Massachusetts, U.S. Business management education is emphasized at the college, which offers B.S. and M.B.A. degrees. It consists of divisions of accounting and law, arts and humanities, economics, finance, history and society, management, marketing, and math and science. Students are required to take

Tuesday, October 05, 2004

Aladdin

Arabic �'ala' Ad-din, � hero of one of the best known stories in The Thousand and One Nights. The son of a deceased Chinese tailor and his poor widow, Aladdin is a lazy, careless boy who meets an African magician claiming to be his uncle. The magician brings Aladdin to the mouth of a cave and bids him enter and bring out a wonderful lamp that is inside, giving him a magic ring for his safety in the meantime.

Monday, October 04, 2004

Eritrea, Contesting for the coastlands

Off the plateau, the pastoralist peoples in the west and north knew no foreign master until the early 19th century, when the Egyptians invaded the Sudan and raided deep into the Eritrean lowlands. The Red Sea coast, owing to its strategic and commercial importance, was contested by many powers. In the 16th century the Turks occupied the Dahlak Archipelago and then Massawa,

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Backhaus, Wilhelm

Backhaus studied piano in Leipzig and in Frankfurt am Main. His first concert appearance took place when he was eight years of age, and in 1905 he won the Rubinstein prize in Paris. He held teaching appointments at the Royal Manchester College

Saturday, October 02, 2004

Mannar Island

Dry, barren island that lies at the eastern end of Adam's Bridge, a chain of shoals off the northwestern coast of Sri Lanka. Mannar Island has an area of about 50 square miles (130 square km). Fishing is economically important. The small port of Mannar is on the southeastern shore. Pop. (1990 est.) 132,000.

Friday, October 01, 2004

Quantum Number

The principal quantum number for electrons confined