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Curtis, Edward Sheriff

(Encyclopedia)Curtis, Edward Sheriff, 1868–1952, American photographer and pioneer ethnographer known for his documentation of Native Americans, b. near Whitewater, Wis. Curtis was obsessed with photography from ...

rotary engine

(Encyclopedia)rotary engine, internal-combustion engine whose cycle is similar to that of a piston engine, but which produces rotary motion directly without any conversion from reciprocating motion. A major problem...

decibel

(Encyclopedia)decibel dĕsˈəbĕlˌ, –bəl [key], abbr. dB, unit used to measure the loudness of sound. It is one tenth of a bel (named for A. G. Bell), but the larger unit is rarely used. The decibel is a measu...

Lumet, Sidney

(Encyclopedia)Lumet, Sidney lo͞o-mĕtˈ [key], 1924–2011, one of the great American film directors of the 20th cent., b. Philadelphia. A child actor in New York's Yiddish radio and theater and (1935–41) on Bro...

Kennedy, Joseph Patrick

(Encyclopedia)Kennedy, Joseph Patrick, 1888–1969, U.S. ambassador to Great Britain (1937–40), b. Boston, grad. Harvard, 1912. The founder of an American dynasty, he was the father of nine children, including Jo...

Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson

(Encyclopedia)Swan, Sir Joseph Wilson, 1828–1914, English chemist and physicist. He made an incandescent lamp using a carbon filament (1860), 20 years before Edison's lamp. Noted for important contributions to ph...

Leiter, Saul

(Encyclopedia)Leiter, Saul lītˈər [key], 1923–2013, American photographer, b. Pittsburgh. A painter in the early 1940s, Leiter switched to photography late in the decade. Along with Robert Frank and Diane Arbu...

camouflage

(Encyclopedia)camouflage kămˈəfläzh [key], in warfare, the disguising of objects with artificial aids, especially for the purpose of making them blend into their surroundings or of deceiving the observer as to ...

Pulitzer Prizes

(Encyclopedia)Pulitzer Prizes, annual awards for achievements in American journalism, letters, and music. The prizes are paid from the income of a fund left by Joseph Pulitzer to the trustees of Columbia Univ. They...

physics

(Encyclopedia)physics, branch of science traditionally defined as the study of matter, energy, and the relation between them; it was called natural philosophy until the late 19th cent. and is still known by this na...