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Townes, Charles Hard

(Encyclopedia)Townes, Charles Hard, 1915–2015, American physicist and educator, b. Greenville, S.C. He was educated at Furman Univ., Duke, and the California Institute of Technology (Ph.D., 1939), was on the tech...

Boyle, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Boyle, Robert, 1627–91, Anglo-Irish physicist and chemist. The seventh son of the 1st earl of Cork, he was educated at Eton and on the Continent and conducted most of his researches at his own labor...

stereochemistry

(Encyclopedia)stereochemistry, study of the three-dimensional configuration of the atoms that make up a molecule and the ways in which this arrangement affects the physical and chemical properties of the molecule. ...

liquid crystal

(Encyclopedia)liquid crystal, liquid whose component particles, atoms or molecules, tend to arrange themselves with a degree of order far exceeding that found in ordinary liquids and approaching that of solid cryst...

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

(Encyclopedia)Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, scientific research centers run by the Univ. of California, located in Berkeley, Calif., and Livermore, Calif., respec...

Hersey, John Richard

(Encyclopedia)Hersey, John Richard hûrˈsē [key], 1914–93, American author, b. China, grad. Yale, 1936, where he later taught writing (1965–84); studied Cambridge. Reflecting his experiences as a war correspo...

inert gas

(Encyclopedia)inert gas or noble gas, any of the elements in Group 18 of the periodic table. In order of increasing atomic number they are: helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, and radon. They are colorless, odorle...

United States Naval Observatory

(Encyclopedia)United States Naval Observatory, a federal astronomical observatory, located in Washington, D. C. It evolved from the Navy's oldest scientific institution, the Depot of Charts and Instruments, founded...

Dukhobors

(Encyclopedia)Dukhobors or Doukhobors both: do͞oˈkəbôrz [key] [Russ.,=spirit wrestlers], religious group, prominent in Russia from the 18th to the 19th cent. The name was coined by the Orthodox opponents of the...

cobalt, chemical element

(Encyclopedia)cobalt, metallic chemical element; symbol Co; at. no. 27; at. wt. 58.9332; m.p. 1,495℃; b.p. about 2,870℃; sp. gr. 8.9 at 20℃; valence +2 or +3. Cobalt is a silver-white, lustrous, hard, brittle...