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Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen

(Encyclopedia)Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, a fundamental document of French constitutional history, drafted by Emmanuel Sieyès, adopted by the Constituent Assembly on Aug. 26, 1789, and embodied i...

Elizabeth, empress of Austria and queen of Hungary

(Encyclopedia)Elizabeth, 1837–98, empress of Austria and queen of Hungary. A Bavarian princess, she was married (1854) to her cousin, Emperor Francis Joseph. Despite her exceptional beauty, intelligence, and kind...

relativity

(Encyclopedia)relativity, physical theory, introduced by Albert Einstein, that discards the concept of absolute motion and instead treats only relative motion between two systems or frames of reference. One consequ...

perturbation

(Encyclopedia)perturbation pŭrˌtərbāˈshən [key], in astronomy and physics, small force or other influence that modifies the otherwise simple motion of some object. The term is also used for the effect produce...

Helmholtz, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von

(Encyclopedia)Helmholtz, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von hĕrˈmän lo͞otˈvĭkh fĕrˈdēnänt fən hĕlmˈhôlts [key], 1821–94, German scientist. Although known especially as a physicist and biologist, he was al...

Schapiro, Meyer

(Encyclopedia)Schapiro, Meyer shəpĭrˈō [key], 1904–96, American art historian, b. Siauliai, Lithuania. Schapiro came to the United States in 1907 and later attended Columbia Univ., where he began teaching in ...

Dyson, Freeman John

(Encyclopedia)Dyson, Freeman John dīˈsən [key], 1923–2020, British-American theoretical physicist and mathematician, studied Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A., 1945) and Cornell. He did bomber operations resear...

enthalpy

(Encyclopedia)enthalpy ĕnˈthălpē [key], measure of the heat content of a chemical or physical system; it is a quantity derived from the heat and work relations studied in thermodynamics. As a system changes fro...

Berkeley, George

(Encyclopedia)Berkeley, George bärˈklē, bûr– [key], 1685–1753, Anglo-Irish philosopher and clergyman, b. Co. Kilkenny, Ireland. Educated at Trinity College, Dublin, he became a scholar and later a fellow th...

superconductivity

(Encyclopedia)superconductivity, abnormally high electrical conductivity of certain substances. The phenomenon was discovered in 1911 by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, who found that the resistance of mercury dropped sudd...