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Peirce, Charles Sanders

(Encyclopedia)Peirce, Charles Sanders pûrs [key], 1839–1914, American philosopher and polymath, b. Cambridge, Mass., grad. Harvard, 1859; son of Benjamin Peirce. Except for occasional lectures he renounced the r...

Carroll, Lewis

(Encyclopedia)Carroll, Lewis, pseud. of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, 1832–98, English writer, mathematician, and amateur photographer, b. near Daresbury, Cheshire (now in Halton). Educated at Christ Church College, ...

DeLillo, Don

(Encyclopedia)DeLillo, Don dəlĭlˈō [key], 1936–, American novelist, b. New York City, grad. Fordham (1958). DeLillo is an accomplished prose stylist with a dark vision and mordant wit. In a steady stream of n...

forsythia

(Encyclopedia)forsythia fôrsĭthˈēə [key], common name for any member of the small genus Forsythia of the family Oleaceae (olive family), European and Asian shrubs with abundant bell-shaped yellow flowers that ...

Kunlun

(Encyclopedia)Kunlun ko͝onˈlo͝onˈ [key], great mountain system of central Asia, between the Himalayas and the Tian Shan, extending c.1,000 mi (1,610 km) E from the Pamir Mts., along the Tibet-Xinjiang border in...

Cambridge, University of

(Encyclopedia)Cambridge, University of, at Cambridge, England, one of the oldest English-language universities in the world. Originating in the early 12th cent. (legend places its origin even earlier than that of t...

numeration

(Encyclopedia)numeration, in mathematics, process of designating numbers according to any particular system; the number designations are in turn called numerals. In any place value system of numeration, a base numb...

Pythagoras

(Encyclopedia)Pythagoras pĭthăgˈərəs [key], c.582–c.507 b.c., pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, founder of the Pythagorean school. He migrated from his native Samos to Crotona and established a secret religiou...

Hawking, Stephen William

(Encyclopedia)Hawking, Stephen William, 1942–2018, British theoretical physicist, b. Oxford, England, grad. University College, Oxford, 1962, Ph.D. Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 1966. In 1962 Hawking was diagnosed as ...

Zapotec

(Encyclopedia)Zapotec zäˈpətĕk, säˈ– [key], indigenous people of Mexico, primarily in S Oaxaca and on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Little is known of the origin of the Zapotec. Unlike most native peoples of ...