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smart card

(Encyclopedia)smart card, small device that resembles a credit card but contains an embedded microprocessor to store and process information. Magnetic-stripe cards, which store a very small amount of information (m...

Ginzburg, Vitaly Lazarevich

(Encyclopedia)Ginzburg, Vitaly Lazarevich, 1916–2009, Russian physicist, Ph.D. Moscow State Univ., 1938. He was a researcher at Lebedev Physics Institute of the USSR (later Russian) Academy of Sciences after 1940...

Orbiting Geophysical Observatory

(Encyclopedia)Orbiting Geophysical Observatory (OGO), series of six orbiting observatories (see observatory, orbiting) launched between 1964 and 1969 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to s...

transition elements

(Encyclopedia)transition elements or transition metals, in chemistry, group of elements characterized by the filling of an inner d electron orbital as atomic number increases. This includes the elements from titani...

Ross, Sir James Clark

(Encyclopedia)Ross, Sir James Clark, 1800–1862, British polar explorer and rear admiral. In 1818 he accompanied his uncle, Sir John Ross, in search of the Northwest Passage and commanded the Erebus. He later stud...

prospecting

(Encyclopedia)prospecting, search for mineral deposits suitable for mining. Modern prospecting has replaced earlier methods based on chance or superstition (e.g., use of the divining rod) with others based on a sci...

radioactivity

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Effects of a magnetic field on the products of radioactivity CE5 Disintegration series: Radioactive decay of radium-226 into lead-206 radioactivity, spontaneous disintegration or decay of t...

Davis, Henry Winter

(Encyclopedia)Davis, Henry Winter, 1817–65, American political leader, b. Annapolis, Md. He was elected (1854) to the House of Representatives on the Know-Nothing ticket and was twice reelected (1856, 1858) with ...

Hale, George Ellery

(Encyclopedia)Hale, George Ellery, 1868–1938, American astronomer, b. Chicago, grad. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1890. He founded and directed three great observatories (Yerkes, Mt. Wilson, and Palomar...

Guzmán Blanco, Antonio

(Encyclopedia)Guzmán Blanco, Antonio äntōˈnyō go͞osmänˈ blänˈkō [key], 1829–99, president of Venezuela, a caudillo who dominated the nation from 1870 to 1888. Son of the founder of the Liberal party, G...