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Dreyer, Carl Theodor

(Encyclopedia)Dreyer, Carl Theodor kärl tāˈōdôrˌ drīˈər [key], 1889–1968, Danish motion picture director. He began making films in Denmark in 1919. His Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), widely regarded as a...

Buridan, Jean

(Encyclopedia)Buridan, Jean byo͝orˈĭdən, Fr. zhäN bürēdäNˈ [key], d. c.1358, French scholastic philosopher. Rector of the Univ. of Paris, he was a follower of William of Occam and a nominalist. Buridan pro...

Boccioni, Umberto

(Encyclopedia)Boccioni, Umberto o͞ombĕrˈtō bŏt-chôˈnē [key], 1882–1916, Italian futurist painter and sculptor. He played a primary role in the drafting of the manifesto of futurism in 1910 and was the maj...

eccentric

(Encyclopedia)eccentric, in mechanics, device for changing rotary to back-and-forth motion. A disk is mounted off center on a shaft. One flat, open, circular end of a rod fits around the edge of the disk; the other...

spectroheliograph

(Encyclopedia)spectroheliograph, device for photographing the surface of the sun in a single wavelength of light, usually one corresponding to a chief element contained in the sun, e.g., hydrogen or calcium; the re...

Fire, Andrew Zachary

(Encyclopedia)Fire, Andrew Zachary, 1959–, American geneticist, b. Palo Alto, Calif., Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1983. After a long association with the Carnegie Institution of Washington (1986...

Changchun

(Encyclopedia)Changchun chängˈcho͝onˈ [key], city, capital of Jilin prov., China, on the railroad between Harbin ...

Weber, Ernst Heinrich

(Encyclopedia)Weber, Ernst Heinrich vāˈbər [key], 1795–1878, German physiologist. He was a professor at the Univ. of Leipzig (1821–71) and is known for his work on touch and for the formulation of Weber's l...

Potsdam

(Encyclopedia)Potsdam pŏtsˈdăm [key], city (1994 pop. 139,262), capital of Brandenburg, E Germany, on the Havel River, near Berlin. It is an industrial center and rail junction. Manufactures include processed fo...

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