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Glaser, Donald Arthur

(Encyclopedia)Glaser, Donald Arthur, 1926–2013, American physicist, b. Cleveland, Ph.D. California Institute of Technology, 1950. He was a professor at the Univ. of Michigan from 1950 to 1959, when he joined the ...

Steinberger, Jack

(Encyclopedia)Steinberger, Jack (Hans Jakob Steinberger), 1921–2020, American physicist, b. Kissingen, Germany, Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1948. He and a brother were sent to the United States in 1934 as the Nazis r...

ring, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)ring, in astronomy, relatively thin band of rocks and dust and ice particles that orbit around a planet in the planet's equatorial plane. All four of the giant planets in the solar system—Jupiter, S...

scalar

(Encyclopedia)scalar, quantity or number possessing only sign and magnitude, e.g., the real numbers (see number), in contrast to vectors and tensors; scalars obey the rules of elementary algebra. Many physical quan...

conglomerate, in geology

(Encyclopedia)conglomerate, in geology, sedimentary rock composed largely of pebbles or other rounded particles whose diameter is larger than 2 mm (.08 in.). Essentially a cemented gravel, conglomerates are formed ...

beta particle

(Encyclopedia)beta particle, one of the three types of radiation resulting from natural radioactivity. Beta radiation (or beta rays) was identified and named by E. Rutherford, who found that it consists of high-spe...

powder

(Encyclopedia)powder, any mass of fine particles or dust prepared by various mechanical means, e.g., grinding of solid substances, or by chemical means, e.g., precipitation from solutions. In a special sense, the w...

Farnsworth, Philo Taylor

(Encyclopedia)Farnsworth, Philo Taylor, 1906–71, American inventor, b. Beaver, Utah, grad. Brigham Young Univ., 1925. He demonstrated (1927) a working model of a television system. His “dissector tube” (calle...

National Defense Education Act

(Encyclopedia)National Defense Education Act (NDEA), federal legislation passed in 1958 providing aid to education in the United States at all levels, public and private. NDEA was instituted primarily to stimulate ...

Mahan, Dennis Hart

(Encyclopedia)Mahan, Dennis Hart, 1802–71, American soldier and educator, b. New York City; father of Alfred Thayer Mahan. He graduated (1824) from West Point, and from that year until 1871, except for four years...