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X

(Encyclopedia)X, 24th letter of the alphabet. In English it has no peculiar sound, but stands for the combination ks as in fox, or gz as in exempt, or, initially, for the sound of z as in xenia. In words from Greek...

analog-to-digital conversion

(Encyclopedia)analog-to-digital or A/D conversion, the process of changing continuously varying data, such as voltage, current, or shaft rotation, into discrete digital quantities that represent the magnitude of th...

Ives, Frederic Eugene

(Encyclopedia)Ives, Frederic Eugene, 1856–1937, American inventor, b. Litchfield, Conn. A pioneer in the development of orthochromatic and trichromatic photography and of photoengraving, he followed an earlier su...

Boyle, Willard Sterling

(Encyclopedia)Boyle, Willard Sterling, 1924–2011, Canadian-American solid-state physicist, b. Amherst, N.S., Canada, Ph.D. McGill Univ., Montreal, 1950. Boyle was a researcher at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill,...

Siemens, Sir William

(Encyclopedia)Siemens, Sir William, 1823–83, English electrical engineer, b. Germany; brother of Ernst Werner von Siemens. Originally his name was Carl Wilhelm Siemens. After visiting England to introduce an elec...

Point Judith

(Encyclopedia)Point Judith, promontory extending into Block Island Sound, S R.I., in the town of Narragansett. A U.S. Coast Guard station and a lighthouse are there. ...

painting

(Encyclopedia)painting, direct application of pigment to a surface to produce by tones of color or of light and dark some representation or decorative arrangement of natural or imagined forms. See also articles on ...

Admiralty Inlet

(Encyclopedia)Admiralty Inlet: see Puget Sound. ...

thunder

(Encyclopedia)thunder, sound produced along a path of a lightning flash, caused by the rapid heating and expansion of the adjacent air; lightning can heat air to temperatures as much as five times hotter than those...

celestial mechanics

(Encyclopedia)celestial mechanics, the study of the motions of astronomical bodies as they move under the influence of their mutual gravitation. Celestial mechanics analyzes the orbital motions of planets, dwarf pl...