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thermostat

(Encyclopedia)thermostat, automatic device that regulates temperature in an enclosed area by controlling heating or refrigerating systems. It is commonly connected to one of these systems, turning it on or off in o...

Sheridan, Richard Brinsley

(Encyclopedia)Sheridan, Richard Brinsley, 1751–1816, English dramatist and politician, b. Dublin. His father, Thomas Sheridan, was an actor and teacher of elocution and his mother, Frances Sheridan, published two...

Gardiner, Silvester

(Encyclopedia)Gardiner, Silvester or Sylvester, 1708–86, American colonial physician and landowner, b. South Kingstown, R.I. He studied medicine in London and Paris, built up a large practice in Boston, and estab...

Updike, John

(Encyclopedia)Updike, John, 1932–2009, American author, one of the nation's most distinguished 20th-century men of letters, b. Shillington, Pa., grad. Harvard, 1954. In his many novels and stories, written in a w...

cartoon

(Encyclopedia)cartoon [Ital., cartone=paper], either of two types of drawings: in the fine arts, a preliminary sketch for a more complete work; in journalism, a humorous or satirical drawing. Humorous nonpolitica...

Rivas

(Encyclopedia)Rivas, town (1995 est. pop. 22,255), SW Nicaragua. It is on the Isthmus of Rivas, a narrow land strip between Lake Nicaragua and the Pacific Ocean. Rivas is the commercial center of a region which pro...

papier-mâché

(Encyclopedia)papier-mâché pāˈpər-məshāˈ [key], art material made of paper strips soaked in a binder of starch or flour paste; it dries into a firm, hard substance. Papier-mâché is widely used in the prod...

Hall effect

(Encyclopedia)Hall effect, experiment that shows the sign of the charge carriers in a conductor. In 1879 E. H. Hall discovered that when he placed a metal strip carrying a current in a magnetic field, a voltage dif...

fuse, electric

(Encyclopedia)fuse, electric, safety device used to protect an electric circuit against an excessive current. A fuse consists essentially of a strip of low-melting alloy enclosed in a suitable housing. It is connec...

still life

(Encyclopedia)still life, a pictorial representation of inanimate objects. The term derives from the 17th-century Dutch still-leven, meaning a motionless natural object or objects. In East Asia still-life subj...