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robin's plantain

(Encyclopedia)robin's plantain plănˈtĭn [key], common name of several plants belonging to the family Asteraceae (aster family). Robin's plantain, also known as hawkweed, of the genus Hieracium, is mostly native ...

Hare, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Hare, Robert, 1781–1858, American chemist, b. Philadelphia. He was professor of chemistry (1819–47) at the medical college of the Univ. of Pennsylvania. Hare made important contributions to early ...

field, in physics

(Encyclopedia)field, in physics, region throughout which a force may be exerted; examples are the gravitational, electric, and magnetic fields that surround, respectively, masses, electric charges, and magnets. The...

Puteaux

(Encyclopedia)Puteaux pütōˈ [key], suburb W of Paris (1990 pop. 42,917), Hauts-de-Seine dept., N central France, on the Seine River. An important industrial center, Puteaux is the birthplace of the French automo...

Persian literature

(Encyclopedia)Persian literature, literary writings in the Persian language, nearly all of it written in the area traditionally known as Persia, now Iran. The 15th cent. period of the second Turko-Tartar invasi...

Hobsbawm, Eric John Ernest

(Encyclopedia)Hobsbawm, Eric John Ernest , 1917–2012, British Marxist historian, b. Alexandria, Egypt. Educated at Cambridge (Ph.D., 1951), he joined the Communist party there in 1936. He served in the British ar...

direct current

(Encyclopedia)direct current, abbr. DC, a movement of electric charge across an arbitrarily defined surface in one direction only. See electricity; generator. ...

Liffey

(Encyclopedia)Liffey lĭfˈē [key], river, c.50 mi (80 km) long, rising in the Wicklow Mts., E Republic of Ireland, and flowing W, NE, and then E through Dublin to Dublin Bay. There are three electric power statio...

searchlight

(Encyclopedia)searchlight, device, usually swiveled, using a lens and reflecting surface to direct a powerful beam of light of nearly parallel rays. In 1892 such apparatus was used along the English Channel in coas...

electromotive force

(Encyclopedia)electromotive force, abbr. emf, difference in electric potential, or voltage, between the terminals of a source of electricity, e.g., a battery from which no current is being drawn. When current is dr...