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maser

(Encyclopedia)maser māˈzər [key], device for creation, amplification, and transmission of an intense, highly focused beam of high-frequency radio waves. The name maser is an acronym for microwave amplification b...

heredity

(Encyclopedia)heredity, transmission from generation to generation through the process of reproduction in plants and animals of factors which cause the offspring to resemble their parents. That like begets like has...

Anabaptists

(Encyclopedia)Anabaptists ănˌəbăpˈtĭsts [key] [Gr.,=rebaptizers], name applied, originally in scorn, to certain Protestant sects holding that infant baptism is not authorized in Scripture and that baptism sho...

distillation

(Encyclopedia)distillation, process used to separate the substances composing a mixture. It involves a change of state, as of liquid to gas, and subsequent condensation. The process was probably first used in the p...

condensate

(Encyclopedia)condensate, matter in the form of a gas of atoms, molecules, or elementary particles that have been so chilled that their motion is virtually halted and as a consequence they lose their separate ident...

chemical equilibrium

(Encyclopedia)chemical equilibrium, state of balance in which two opposing reversible chemical reactions proceed at constant equal rates with no net change in the system. For example, when hydrogen gas, H2, and iod...

soap

(Encyclopedia)soap, a cleansing agent. It cleanses by lowering the surface tension of water, by emulsifying grease, and by absorbing dirt into the foam. Ancient peoples are believed to have employed wood ashes and ...

Stoicism

(Encyclopedia)Stoicism stōˈĭsĭzəm [key], school of philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium (in Cyprus) c.300 b.c. The first Stoics were so called because they met in the Stoa Poecile [Gr.,=painted porch], at Athe...

administrative law

(Encyclopedia)administrative law, law governing the powers and processes of administrative agencies. The term is sometimes used also of law (i.e., rules, regulations) developed by agencies in the course of their op...

Bush, George Herbert Walker

(Encyclopedia)Bush, George Herbert Walker, 1924–2018, 41st President of the United States (1989–93), b. Milton, Mass., B.A., Yale Univ., 1948. Bush's handling of domestic affairs was less successful. The savi...