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Herschbach, Dudley Robert

(Encyclopedia)Herschbach, Dudley Robert hûrshˈbăk [key], 1932–, American chemist, b. San Jose, Calif., Ph.D. Harvard, 1958. In 1986, Herschbach shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Yuan T. Lee and John C. ...

Hoxie, Robert Franklin

(Encyclopedia)Hoxie, Robert Franklin hŏkˈsē [key], 1868–1916, American economist, b. Edmeston, W of Cooperstown, N.Y., Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1905. He taught at the Univ. of Chicago from 1906 to 1916. A reali...

Darwin, Charles Robert

(Encyclopedia)Darwin, Charles Robert, 1809–82, English naturalist, b. Shrewsbury; grandson of Erasmus Darwin and of Josiah Wedgwood. He firmly established the theory of organic evolution known as Darwinism. He st...

Leicester, Robert Dudley, earl of

(Encyclopedia)Leicester, Robert Dudley, earl of lĕsˈtər [key], 1532?–1588, English courtier and favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. A younger son of John Dudley, duke of Northumberland, he was early brought into th...

Merton, Robert King

(Encyclopedia)Merton, Robert King, 1910–2003, American sociologist, b. Philadelphia as Meyer Schkolnick, grad. Temple Univ. (A.B., 1931) and Harvard (M.A., 1932; Ph.D., 1936). From 1941 on he was a professor of s...

Cech, Thomas Robert

(Encyclopedia)Cech, Thomas Robert chĕk [key], 1947–, American microbiologist, b. Chicago, grad. Univ. of California, Berkeley. A professor at the Univ. of Colorado, he discovered that RNA could function as enzym...

Gloucester, Robert, earl of

(Encyclopedia)Gloucester, Robert, earl of, d. 1147, English nobleman; illegitimate son of Henry I. Henry created (c.1121) the earldom of Gloucester for him. After his father's death (1135), Robert appeared to accep...

MacIver, Robert Morrison

(Encyclopedia)MacIver, Robert Morrison məkēˈvər, –kīˈvər [key], 1882–1970, Scottish-American sociologist, b. Scotland, grad. Univ. of Edinburgh and Oxford. He began teaching at Columbia Univ. in 1927. Hi...

Bridges, Robert Seymour

(Encyclopedia)Bridges, Robert Seymour, 1844–1930, English poet. In 1882 he abandoned medical practice to devote himself to writing. An excellent metrist, he wrote many beautiful lyrics and longer poems, noted for...

Blake, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Blake, Robert, 1599–1657, English admiral. A merchant, he sat in the Short Parliament (1640) and joined the parliamentary side in the civil war. He defended Bristol, Lyme, and Taunton against royali...

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