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Pythagoras

(Encyclopedia)Pythagoras pĭthăgˈərəs [key], c.582–c.507 b.c., pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, founder of the Pythagorean school. He migrated from his native Samos to Crotona and established a secret religiou...

Schwinger, Julian Seymour

(Encyclopedia)Schwinger, Julian Seymour, 1918–94, American physicist, b. New York City, Ph.D. Columbia, 1939. He was a professor at the Univ. of California, Berkeley (1939–47) and worked under J. Robert Oppenhe...

Rubin, Vera

(Encyclopedia)Rubin, Vera, 1928–2016, American astronomer, b. Philadelphia as Vera Florence Cooper, Ph.D. Georgetown (1954). After teaching at Georgetown, she joined (1965) the Carnegie Institution's department o...

Nollet, Jean Antoine

(Encyclopedia)Nollet, Jean Antoine zhäN äNtwänˈ nôlāˈ [key], 1700–1770, French clergyman, experimental physicist, and leading member of the Paris Academy of Science. He constructed one of the first electro...

Higgs, Peter Ware

(Encyclopedia)Higgs, Peter Ware, 1929–, British theoretical physicist, Ph.D. Kings College London, 1954. Higgs joined the faculty at the Univ. of Edinburgh in 1960. He was awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics ...

Shakti

(Encyclopedia)Shakti shŭkˈtē [key] [Skt.,=power], in Hinduism, name given to the female consorts of male deities. The Shakti personifies the dynamic, manifesting energy that creates the universe, while the male ...

nucleus, in physics

(Encyclopedia)nucleus, in physics, the extremely dense central core of an atom. Following the discovery of radioactivity by A. H. Becquerel in 1896, Ernest Rutherford identified two types of radiation given off b...

Boolean algebra

(Encyclopedia)Boolean algebra bo͞oˈlēən [key], an abstract mathematical system primarily used in computer science and in expressing the relationships between sets (groups of objects or concepts). The notational...

Mitchell, Peter Dennis

(Encyclopedia)Mitchell, Peter Dennis, 1920–92, British chemist, Ph.D. Cambridge, 1950. A professor at the Univ. of Edinburgh (1955–63), Mitchell was named director of Glynn Research Laboratories in 1964. He for...

Politzer, Hugh David

(Encyclopedia)Politzer, Hugh David, 1949–, American physicist, b. Mineola, N.Y., Ph.D. Harvard, 1974. Politzer has been a professor at the California Institute of Technology since 1977. He was a co-recipient, wit...