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Fourier, Jean Baptiste Joseph, Baron

(Encyclopedia)Fourier, Jean Baptiste Joseph, Baron, 1768–1830, French mathematician and physicist. He was noted for his researches on heat and on numerical equations. He originated Fourier's theorem on vibratory ...

antihistamine

(Encyclopedia)antihistamine ănˌtĭhĭsˈtəmēn [key], any one of a group of compounds having various chemical structures and characterized by the ability to antagonize the effects of histamine. Their principal u...

Mariotte, Edme

(Encyclopedia)Mariotte, Edme ĕdˈmə märyôtˈ [key], 1620?–1684, French physicist. His De la nature de l'air (1676) includes a statement of Boyle's law (see gas laws), which he discovered independently and whi...

Bradley, James

(Encyclopedia)Bradley, James, 1693–1762, English astronomer. His discovery of the aberration of light, announced in 1728, provided an important line of evidence for the motion of the earth around the sun. In 1742...

Sendak, Maurice Bernard

(Encyclopedia)Sendak, Maurice Bernard, 1928–2012, American writer and illustrator of children's books, b. Brooklyn, N.Y. Largely self-taught, he was widely acclaimed as the 20th-century's most important childrens...

Mannes, David

(Encyclopedia)Mannes, David mănˈĭs [key], 1866–1959, American violinist, conductor, and educator, b. New York City. Mannes was violinist in the New York Symphony Orchestra from 1891 and its concertmaster from ...

Abbott, Berenice

(Encyclopedia)Abbott, Berenice bĕrˌənēsˈ [key], 1898–1991, American photographer, b. Springfield, Ohio. Abbott, who had left (1918) the Midwest for Greenwich Village, then (1921) Paris, had become a sculptor...

Brassaï

(Encyclopedia)Brassaï bräsīˈ [key], 1899–1984, French photographer, b. Brassó, Hungary (now Braşov, Romania), as Gyula Halász. Particularly known for his nightime photographs of Paris, he studied art in Hu...

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...

steam engine

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Steam engine steam engine, machine for converting heat energy into mechanical energy using steam as a medium, or working fluid. When water is converted into steam it expands, its volume increa...