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Smalley, Richard Errett

(Encyclopedia)Smalley, Richard Errett, 1943–2005, American chemist, b. Akron, Ohio, Ph.D. Princeton, 1973. He was a professor at Rice Univ. in Houston, Tex., from 1976 until his death in 2005. Smalley shared the ...

catalyst

(Encyclopedia)catalyst, substance that can cause a change in the rate of a chemical reaction without itself being consumed in the reaction; the changing of the reaction rate by use of a catalyst is called catalysis...

Wilkinson, Sir Geoffrey

(Encyclopedia)Wilkinson, Sir Geoffrey, 1921–, English inorganic chemist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Ernst Otto Fischer for their independent research on the organometallic compounds of the t...

animal

(Encyclopedia)animal, any member of the animal kingdom (kingdom Animalia), as distinguished from organisms of the plant kingdom (kingdom Plantae) and the kingdoms Fungi, Protista, and Monera in the five-kingdom sys...

Mercury, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Mercury, in astronomy, nearest planet to the sun, at a mean distance of 36 million mi (58 million km); its period of revolution is 88 days. Mercury passes through phases similar to those of the moon a...

producer gas

(Encyclopedia)producer gas, fuel gas consisting chiefly of carbon monoxide and nitrogen. It is prepared in a furnace or generator in which air is forced upward through a burning fuel of coal or coke. Although the f...

ocher

(Encyclopedia)ocher ōˈkər [key], mixture of varying proportions of iron oxide and clay, used as a pigment. It occurs naturally as yellow ocher (yellow or yellow-brown in color), the iron oxide being limonite, or...

International Geophysical Year

(Encyclopedia)International Geophysical Year (IGY), 18-month period from July, 1957, through Dec., 1958, during a period of maximum sunspot activity, designated for cooperative study of the solar-terrestrial enviro...

hygrometer

(Encyclopedia)hygrometer hīgrŏmˈətər [key], instrument used to measure the moisture content of a gas, as in determining the relative humidity of air. The temperature at which dew or frost forms is a measure of...

barium

(Encyclopedia)barium bârˈēəm [key] [Gr.,=heavy], metallic chemical element; symbol Ba; at. no. 56; at. wt. 137.327; m.p. 725℃; b.p. 1,640℃; sp. gr. 3.5 at 20℃; valence +2. Barium is a soft, silver-white, ...