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photoelectric effect

(Encyclopedia)photoelectric effect, emission of electrons by substances, especially metals, when light falls on their surfaces. The effect was discovered by H. R. Hertz in 1887. The failure of the classical theory ...

Minkowski, Hermann

(Encyclopedia)Minkowski, Hermann hĕrˈmän mĭnkôfˈskē [key], 1864–1909, Russian mathematician. He was educated in Germany and was professor at the Univ. of Königsberg (1894–96), the Federal Institute of T...

Filmer, Sir Robert

(Encyclopedia)Filmer, Sir Robert, d. 1653, English royalist political writer, author of Patriarcha; or, The Natural Power of Kings (pub. posthumously in 1680), a defense of the divine right of monarchs by an exposi...

Ramanujan, Srinivasa

(Encyclopedia)Ramanujan, Srinivasa shrēˌnĭväˈsə rämäˈno͝ojən [key], 1889–1920, Indian mathematician. He was a self-taught genius in pure mathematics who made original contributions to function theory, ...

Stokes, Sir George Gabriel

(Encyclopedia)Stokes, Sir George Gabriel, 1819–1903, British mathematician and physicist, b. Ireland, studied at Cambridge. From 1849 he was a professor of mathematics at Cambridge; he served as secretary (1854�...

Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen

(Encyclopedia)Böhm-Bawerk, Eugen oigānˈ bömˈ-bäˈvĕrk [key], 1851–1914, Austrian economist. Three times minister of finance (1895, 1897, and 1900), he initiated important tax reforms and farsighted financi...

Roth, Alvin Elliot

(Encyclopedia)Roth, Alvin Elliot, 1951–, American economist, b. New York City, Ph.D Stanford, 1974. He has been a professor in economics and business administration at the Univ. of Illinois (1974–82), the Univ....

Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich

(Encyclopedia)Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich ĭlyēchˈ chīkôfˈskē [key], 1840–93, Russian composer, b. Kamsko-Votkinsk. Variant transliterations of his name include Tschaikovsky and Chaikovsky. He is a towering f...

Hermite, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Hermite, Charles shärl ĕrmētˈ [key], 1822–1901, French mathematician. A professor at the École polytechnique, Paris (1869–76), and at the Faculty of Sciences (1869–97), he exerted a strong ...

Banach, Stefan

(Encyclopedia)Banach, Stefan stĕˈfän bäˈnäkh [key], 1892–1945, Polish mathematician. He was educated at the Institute of Technology in Lviv; his doctoral thesis laid the foundations of modern functional ana...