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English units of measurement

(Encyclopedia)English units of measurement, principal system of weights and measures used in a few nations, the only major industrial one being the United States. It actually consists of two related systems—the U...

Europa, in astronomy

(Encyclopedia)Europa yo͝orōˈpə [key], in astronomy, one of the 39 known moons, or natural satellites, of Jupiter. Magnetic-field data collected by the space probe Galileo in 2002 strongly indicated a liquid-wat...

Goddard, Robert Hutchings

(Encyclopedia)Goddard, Robert Hutchings, 1882–1945, American physicist and rocket expert, b. Worcester, Mass., grad. Worcester Polytechnic Institute (B.S., 1908), Ph.D. Clark Univ., 1911. From 1914 he was associa...

sodium thiosulfate

(Encyclopedia)sodium thiosulfate, Na2S2O3, colorless crystalline compound that is more familiar as the pentahydrate, Na2S2O3·5H2O, an efflorescent, monoclinic crystalline substance also called sodium hyposulfite o...

chlorate

(Encyclopedia)chlorate pərklōrˈāt, –klôrˈ– [key], salts of chloric acid, HClO3, and perchloric acid, HClO4, respectively. Perchlorates are safer to handle than chlorates; they are more stable when expos...

colloid

(Encyclopedia)colloid kŏlˈoid [key] [Gr.,=gluelike], a mixture in which one substance is divided into minute particles (called colloidal particles) and dispersed throughout a second substance. The mixture is also...

pressure

(Encyclopedia)pressure, in mechanics, ratio of the force acting on a surface to the area of the surface; it is thus distinct from the total force acting on a surface. A force can be applied to and sustained by a si...

cloaca

(Encyclopedia)cloaca klōāˈkə [key], in biology, enlarged posterior end of the digestive tract of some animals. The cloaca, from the Latin word for sewer, is a single chamber into which pass solid and liquid was...

liquefied petroleum gas

(Encyclopedia)liquefied petroleum gas or LPG, mixture of gases, chiefly propane and butane, produced commercially from petroleum and stored under pressure to keep it in a liquid state. The boiling point of liquefie...

Sloane, T(homas) O'Conor

(Encyclopedia)Sloane, T(homas) O'Conor, 1851–1940, American scientist, lecturer, writer, and periodical editor, Ph.D. Columbia, 1876. Sloane was a member of the editorial staff of the Scientific American, where h...