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Gallant, Mavis

(Encyclopedia)Gallant, Mavis (Mavis Leslie Young Gallant) gă-lăntˈ [key], 1922–2014, Canadian writer, b. Montreal. After graduating from high school, she was a newspaper feature writer in Montreal (1944–50),...

Newcomb, Simon

(Encyclopedia)Newcomb, Simon no͞oˈkəm, nyo͞oˈ– [key], 1835–1909, American astronomer, b. Nova Scotia, grad. Lawrence Scientific School, Harvard, 1858. Living in the United States from 1853, he was appointe...

Walker, James John

(Encyclopedia)Walker, James John, 1881–1946, American politician, b. New York City. Dapper and debonair, Jimmy Walker, having tried his hand at song writing, engaged in Democratic politics and in 1909 became a me...

Walker, William

(Encyclopedia)Walker, William, 1824–60, American filibuster in Nicaragua, b. Nashville, Tenn. Walker, a qualified doctor, a lawyer, and a journalist by the time he was 24, sought a more adventurous career. After ...

boiler

(Encyclopedia)boiler, device for generating steam. It consists of two principal parts: the furnace, which provides heat, usually by burning a fuel, and the boiler proper, a device in which the heat changes water in...

Lippman, Gabriel Jonas

(Encyclopedia)Lippman, Gabriel Jonas, 1845–1921, French physicist, Ph.D. Sorbonne, 1875. He was a professor at the Sorbonne from 1883 until his death in 1921. Lippman received the 1908 Nobel Prize in Physics for ...

Aras

(Encyclopedia)Aras äräsˈ [key], Armenian, Rus., Araks, Azeri Araz, river, c.600 mi (970 km) long, rising in the Transcaucasus Mts., NE Turkey. It flows generally east, forming parts of the Turkey-Armenia, Armeni...

Smith, Michael

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Michael, 1932–2000, British-born Canadian biochemist, Ph.D. Univ. of Manchester, 1956. Smith was a researcher at the Univ. of British Columbia from 1961 until his death in 2000. He shared the...

fluxional molecules

(Encyclopedia)fluxional molecules, molecules that exhibit rapid intramolecular rearrangements among their component atoms. As in structural isomerism and tautomerism (see isomer; tautomer), fluxional compounds main...

Haber process

(Encyclopedia)Haber process häˈbər [key], commercial process for the synthesis of ammonia, NH3. Pure hydrogen and nitrogen gases are mixed in the appropriate proportion, heated to between 450℃ and 600℃, comp...