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Euler, Leonhard

(Encyclopedia)Euler, Leonhard lāˈônhärt oiˈlər [key], 1707–83, Swiss mathematician. Born and educated at Basel, where he knew the Bernoullis, he went to St. Petersburg (1727) at the invitation of Catherine ...

Higgins, William

(Encyclopedia)Higgins, William, b. 1762 or 1763, d. 1825, Irish chemist. After study at Oxford he became supervisor of the Royal Dublin Society's mineralogical collection and in 1800 the Society's professor of chem...

Playfair, John

(Encyclopedia)Playfair, John, 1748–1819, Scottish mathematician, physicist, and geologist. He was educated at St. Andrews and Edinburgh and taught first mathematics and then physics and astronomy at the latter un...

Bennett, Hugh Hammond

(Encyclopedia)Bennett, Hugh Hammond, 1881–1960, American soil scientist, b. near Wadesboro, N.C. Known as the father of soil conservation, he first proposed the theory of sheet erosion of soils in 1905. He direct...

Eleanor of Aquitaine

(Encyclopedia)Eleanor of Aquitaine ăkwĭtānˈ, ăkˈwĭtān [key], 1122?–1204, queen consort first of Louis VII of France and then of Henry II of England. Daughter and heiress of William X, duke of Aquitaine, s...

Eleanor of Castile

(Encyclopedia)Eleanor of Castile kăstēlˈ [key], d.1290, queen consort of Edward I of England and daughter of Ferdinand III of Castile. At her marriage (1254) she brought to Prince Edward the territories of Ponth...

Eleanor of Provence

(Encyclopedia)Eleanor of Provence prôväNsˈ [key], d. 1291, queen consort of Henry III of England. The daughter of Raymond Berengar, count of Provence, she was married to Henry in 1236. She was a vigorous and inc...

Diagoras of Rhodes

(Encyclopedia)Diagoras of Rhodes, ancient Greek athlete, fl. 5th cent. b.c. A boxer and wrester, he won an Olympic championship in 464 b.c. and won numerous times at the Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games. Pindar ...

Didymus of Alexandria

(Encyclopedia)Didymus of Alexandria, d. c.396, Greek grammarian and theologian, also called Didymus the Blind. His treatise On the Holy Ghost was translated by St. Jerome, who studied briefly with him. Although Did...

Diogenes of Apollonia

(Encyclopedia)Diogenes of Apollonia ăpəlōˈnēə [key], 5th cent. b.c., Greek philosopher. An eclectic, he reverted to the Milesian tradition of a century earlier in seeking to explain the constitution of all ma...