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Babcock, Stephen Moulton

(Encyclopedia)Babcock, Stephen Moulton mōlˈtən băbˈkŏk [key], 1843–1931, American agricultural chemist, b. Bridgewater, N.Y., grad. Tufts College (B.A., 1866), Univ. of Göttingen, Germany (Ph.D., 1879). He...

Perrin, Jean Baptiste

(Encyclopedia)Perrin, Jean Baptiste zhäN bätēstˈ pĕrăNˈ [key], 1870–1942, French physicist. From 1910 to 1940 he was professor at the Univ. of Paris, and in 1941 he came to the United States. Perrin specia...

carpet beetle

(Encyclopedia)carpet beetle, name for several beetles that are highly destructive to carpets and upholstery and are classified in the same family as the larder beetles. Adult beetles of this family are pollen eater...

Bourignon, Antoinette

(Encyclopedia)Bourignon, Antoinette äNtwänĕtˈ bo͞orēnyôNˈ [key], 1616–80, Flemish Christian mystic, adherent of quietism. In 1636 she fled from home to avoid a marriage urged by her father, spent a short ...

Bradlaugh, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Bradlaugh, Charles brădˈlô [key], 1833–91, British social reformer, a secularist. Editor of the free-thinking weekly National Reformer from 1860 and later associated with Annie Besant, he was an ...

Stone, Lucy

(Encyclopedia)Stone, Lucy, 1818–93, reformer and leader in the women's rights movement, b. near West Brookfield, Mass., grad. Oberlin, 1847. In 1847 she gave her first lecture on women's rights, and the following...

galaxy

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Hubble classification of galaxies: Elliptical galaxies (E) are classified according to the degree of flattening of the ellipse. Spiral galaxies (S) and barred spiral galaxies (SB) are classifie...

black hole

(Encyclopedia)black hole, in astronomy, celestial object of such extremely intense gravity that it attracts everything near it and in some instances prevents everything, including light, from escaping. The term was...

liquefaction

(Encyclopedia)liquefaction, change of a substance from the solid or the gaseous state to the liquid state. Since the different states of matter correspond to different amounts of energy of the molecules making up t...

solid-state physics

(Encyclopedia)solid-state physics, study of the properties of bulk matter rather than those of the individual particles that compose it. Solid-state physics is concerned with the properties exhibited by atoms and m...