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electroscope

(Encyclopedia)electroscope, device for detecting electric charge invented by Nollet in 1748. There are various types of electroscopes. The most common has a cylindrical metal case closed by two round, flat, glass f...

luminescence

(Encyclopedia)luminescence, general term applied to all forms of cool light, i.e., light emitted by sources other than a hot, incandescent body, such as a blackbody radiator. Luminescence is caused by the movement ...

Dutch art

(Encyclopedia)Dutch art, the art of the region that is now the Netherlands. As a distinct national style, this art dates from about the turn of the 17th cent., when the country emerged as a political entity and dev...

magnetic resonance

(Encyclopedia)magnetic resonance, in physics and chemistry, phenomenon produced by simultaneously applying a steady magnetic field and electromagnetic radiation (usually radio waves) to a sample of atoms and then a...

Roland Holst, Henriëtte (van der Schalk)

(Encyclopedia)Roland Holst, Henriëtte (van der Schalk) hĕnrēĕtˈə vän dĕr skhälk rōˈlänt hôlst [key], 1869–1952, Dutch writer. Her early Sonnets and Poems Written in Terza Rima (1895) won praise for o...

microwave oven

(Encyclopedia)microwave oven, device that uses microwaves to rapidly cook food. The microwaves cause water molecules in the food to vibrate, producing heat, which is distributed through the food by induction. A spe...

radiometer

(Encyclopedia)radiometer rāˌdēŏmˈətər [key], instrument for detection or measurement of electromagnetic radiation; the term is applied in particular to devices used to measure infrared radiation. One of the ...

Johnston, Mary

(Encyclopedia)Johnston, Mary, 1870–1936, American novelist, b. Buchanan, Va. Her books combine romance with history. She is chiefly remembered for To Have and to Hold (1900), a story of colonial Virginia, and its...

Geiger, Johannes Wilhelm

(Encyclopedia)Geiger, Johannes Wilhelm (Hans Geiger) gīˈgər [key], 1882–1945, German physicist. Geiger received a doctorate in physics at Erlangen in 1906, then went to Manchester, where he assisted British c...

Lewis, Edward B.

(Encyclopedia)Lewis, Edward B., 1918–2004, American geneticist, b. Wilkes-Barre, Pa., grad. California Institute of Technology (Ph.D. 1942). After serving as a meteorologist with the U.S. Army Air Corps during Wo...