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Canada balsam

(Encyclopedia)Canada balsam, yellow, oily, resinous exudation obtained from the balsam fir. It is an oleoresin (see resin) with a pleasant odor but a biting taste. It is a turpentine rather than a true balsam. On s...

allotropy

(Encyclopedia)allotropy əlŏˈtrəpē [key] [Gr.,=other form]. A chemical element is said to exhibit allotropy when it occurs in two or more forms in the same physical state; the forms are called allotropes. Allot...

Franklin, Rosalind Elsie

(Encyclopedia)Franklin, Rosalind Elsie, 1920–58, English molecular biologist and chemist, grad. Newnham College, Cambridge (1941). She spent most of the war years (1942–45) working for the British Coal Utilisat...

Hershey, Alfred Day

(Encyclopedia)Hershey, Alfred Day, 1908–1997, American microbiologist, b. Owosso, Mich., Ph.D., Michigan State College (now Michigan State Univ.), 1934. Hershey was a professor at the Washington Univ. School of M...

Brownian movement

(Encyclopedia)Brownian movement or motion, zigzag, irregular motion exhibited by minute particles of matter when suspended in a fluid. The effect has been observed in all types of colloidal suspensions (see colloid...

Rankine temperature scale

(Encyclopedia)Rankine temperature scale, temperature scale having an absolute zero, below which temperatures do not exist, and using a degree of the same size as that used by the Fahrenheit temperature scale. Absol...

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...

Kramer, Larry

(Encyclopedia)Kramer, Larry (Lawrence David), 1935-2020 American gay-rights activist and playwright, b. Bridgeport, Ct., Yale Univ. (B.A., 1957). After graduating co...

encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia)encyclopedia, compendium of knowledge, either general (attempting to cover all fields) or specialized (aiming to be comprehensive in a particular field). The modern type of encyclopedia—with alpha...

diffusion

(Encyclopedia)diffusion, in chemistry, the spontaneous migration of substances from regions where their concentration is high to regions where their concentration is low. Diffusion is important in many life process...