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Santa Monica

(Encyclopedia)Santa Monica sănˈtə mŏnˈĭkə [key], city (1990 pop. 86,905), Los Angeles co., S Calif., on Santa Monica Bay; inc. 1886. Tourism and retailing are important, and the city has motion-picture, biot...

ball-and-socket joint

(Encyclopedia)ball-and-socket joint, in engineering, mechanical connection used between parts that must be allowed some relative angular motion in nearly all directions. As the name implies, the joint consists esse...

memory, in psychology

(Encyclopedia)memory, in psychology, the storing of learned information, and the ability to recall that which has been stored. It has been hypothesized that three processes occur in remembering: perception and regi...

Maxwell, James Clerk

(Encyclopedia)Maxwell, James Clerk klärk [key], 1831–79, great Scottish physicist. After a brilliant career at Edinburgh and Cambridge, where he won early recognition with mathematical papers, he was a professor...

energy

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Relations between potential energy (PE) and kinetic energy (KE) for a swinging pendulum energy, in physics, the ability or capacity to do work or to produce change. Forms of energy include hea...

wave, in physics

(Encyclopedia)wave, in physics, the transfer of energy by the regular vibration, or oscillatory motion, either of some material medium or by the variation in magnitude of the field vectors of an electromagnetic fie...

D'Alembert's principle

(Encyclopedia)D'Alembert's principle dălˈəmbârzˌ [key], in mechanics, principle permitting the reduction of a problem in dynamics to one in statics. This is accomplished by introducing a fictitious force equal...

Alcalá Zamora, Niceto

(Encyclopedia)Alcalá Zamora, Niceto nēthāˈtō älkäläˈ thämōˈrä [key], 1877–1949, Spanish statesman and president of Spain (1931–36). After holding several cabinet posts under the monarchy, he became...

hydraulics

(Encyclopedia)hydraulics, branch of engineering concerned mainly with moving liquids. The term is applied commonly to the study of the mechanical properties of water, other liquids, and even gases when the effects ...

Hillingdon

(Encyclopedia)Hillingdon, outer borough of Greater London, SE England. Industries include printing, motion-picture production, and the manufacture of aircraft, food p...