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latitude

(Encyclopedia)latitude, angular distance of any point on the surface of the earth north or south of the equator. The equator is latitude 0°, and the North Pole and South Pole are latitudes 90°N and 90°S, respect...

Gibbons v. Ogden

(Encyclopedia)Gibbons v. Ogden, case decided in 1824 by the U.S. Supreme Court. Aaron Ogden, the plaintiff, had purchased an interest in the monopoly to operate steamboats that New York state had granted to Robert ...

opal

(Encyclopedia)opal ōˈpəl [key], a mineral consisting of poorly crystalline to amorphous silica, SiO2·nH2O; the water content is quite variable but usually ranges from 3% to 10%. Common opal is usually colorless...

Linh, Nguyen Van

(Encyclopedia)Linh, Nguyen Van nəwēˈĕn vän lĭn [key], 1915–98, Vietnamese political leader, b. near Hanoi as Nguyen Van Cuc. As a young man he was active in organizing Vietnam's Communist party and was twic...

Perelman, Grigori Yakovlevich

(Encyclopedia)Perelman, Grigori Yakovlevich, 1966–, Russian mathematician. After doing graduate work in the late 1980s for his Candidate of Science degree from Leningrad State Univ. (now St. Petersburg State Univ...

Crux

(Encyclopedia)Crux kro͝oks [key] [Lat.,=cross], small but brilliant southern constellation whose four most prominent members form a Latin cross, the famous Southern Cross. The long arm of the cross, terminating in...

Haleakala Observatories

(Encyclopedia)Haleakala Observatories häˌlāäˌkäläˈ [key], astronomical facilities located on the summit of Haleakala volcano, 10,023 ft (3,055 m), in Haleakala National Park, Maui island, Hawaii. Because of...

Bürgi, Joost

(Encyclopedia)Bürgi, Joost or Jost, 1552–1632, Swiss mathematician and instrument maker. As the official clockmaker (1579–92) to Duke Wilhelm IV of Hesse-Kassell, he developed the first clock with a minute han...

sidereal time

(Encyclopedia)sidereal time (ST), time measured relative to the fixed stars; thus, the sidereal day is the period during which the earth completes one rotation on its axis so that some chosen star appears twice on ...

Poincaré, Jules Henri

(Encyclopedia)Poincaré, Jules Henri zhül äNrēˈ pwăNkärāˈ [key], 1854–1912, French mathematician, physicist, and author. He was from 1881 connected with the faculty of sciences at the Univ. of Paris. One ...