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solar constant

(Encyclopedia)solar constant, the average amount of radiant energy received by the earth's atmosphere from the sun; its value is about 2 calories per min incident on each square centimeter of the upper atmosphere. ...

Judah, persons in the Bible

(Encyclopedia)Judah jo͞oˈdə [key]. 1 In the Bible he is the fourth son of Jacob and Leah and the eponymous ancestor of one of the 12 tribes of Israel. In the Book of Genesis, Judah emerges as a leader. With Reub...

Vattel, Emerich de

(Encyclopedia)Vattel, Emerich de āˈmərĭkh də vätĕlˈ [key], 1714–67, Swiss philosopher and jurist. He served (1746–58) as Saxon minister at Bern and later in the cabinet of Augustus III at Dresden. He is...

Leyner, Mark

(Encyclopedia)Leyner, Mark, 1956–, American writer, b. Jersey City, N.J. His hyperliterate postmodernist short stories, collected in I Smell Esther Williams (1983), My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist (1990), and To...

beach

(Encyclopedia)beach, a gently sloping zone where deposits of unconsolidated sediments are subject to wave action at the shore of an ocean or lake. Most of the sediment making up a beach is supplied by rivers or by ...

Simpson, O. J.

(Encyclopedia)Simpson, O. J. (Orenthal James Simpson), 1947–, American football player, b. San Francisco. As a running back for the Univ. of Southern California, he won the Heisman Trophy as the best college play...

Provensen, Alice

(Encyclopedia)Provensen, Alice, 1918–2018, b. Chicago as Alice Rose Twitchell, and Martin Provensen prōˈvĕnsĕn [key], 1916–87, b. Chicago, American children's book authors and illustrators. They both attend...

Sendak, Maurice Bernard

(Encyclopedia)Sendak, Maurice Bernard, 1928–2012, American writer and illustrator of children's books, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. Largely self-taught, he was widely acclaimed as the 20th-century's most important childrens...

Helmont, Jan Baptista van

(Encyclopedia)Helmont, Jan Baptista van yän bäptĭsˈtä vän hĕlˈmônt [key], 1577–1644, Flemish physician, chemist, and physicist. He attributed physiological changes to chemical causes, but his conclusions...

Arnold, Thomas

(Encyclopedia)Arnold, Thomas, 1795–1842, English educator, b. Isle of Wight, educated at Winchester school and at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He was a fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, from 1815 to 1819, was o...