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Urim and Thummim

(Encyclopedia)Urim and Thummim yo͞oˈrĭm, thŭmˈĭm [key], in the Bible, name of sacred instruments used for casting lots. The meaning of the two names is uncertain, as is the nature of the lots. They were in so...

Weber and Fields

(Encyclopedia)Weber and Fields wĕbˈər [key], American comedy team. The partners were Joe Weber (Joseph Maurice Weber), 1867–1942, and Lew Fields (Lewis Maurice Schanfield), 1867–1941, both born in New York C...

weights and measures

(Encyclopedia)CE5 weights and measures, units and standards for expressing the amount of some quantity, such as length, capacity, or weight; the science of measurement standards and methods is known as metrology...

Great Sandy Desert

(Encyclopedia)Great Sandy Desert, Australia's second-largest desert, c.110,000 sq mi (284,900 sq km), Western Australia and Northern Territory. Lying between the Tanami Desert (NE) and the Gibson Desert (S), it is ...

Upshaw, Gene

(Encyclopedia)Upshaw, Gene (Eugene Upshaw, Jr.), 1945–2008, American football player and labor union leader, b. Robstown, Tex. He attended Texas College of Arts and Industries (now Texas A&M, Kingsville), whe...

Van Halen, Eddie

(Encyclopedia)Van Halen, Eddie (Edward Lodewijk Van Halen), 1955–2020, American rock musician and song writer, b. Amsterdam, Netherlands; his family moved to California when he was young. He and brother Alex form...

Boone

(Encyclopedia)Boone. 1 City (2020 pop. 12,242), seat of Boone co., central Iowa, on the Des Moines River; inc. 1865. It is a railroad and industrial center with ...

Feynman, Richard Phillips

(Encyclopedia)Feynman, Richard Phillips fīnˈmən [key], 1918–88, American physicist, b. New York City, B.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1939, Ph.D. Princeton, 1942. From 1942 to 1945 he worked on the...

Karplus, Martin

(Encyclopedia)Karplus, Martin, 1930–, Austrian-American theoretical chemist, b. Vienna, Ph.D. California Institute of Technology, 1953. He has been a professor at Harvard since 1967, studying the electronic struc...

Levitt, Michael

(Encyclopedia)Levitt, Michael, 1947–, British-Israeli-American biophysicist, b. South Africa, Ph.D. Cambridge, 1971. Levitt was a faculty member at Cambridge from 1974 to 1979 and at the Weizmann Institute in Isr...