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Pappus

(Encyclopedia)Pappus păpˈəs [key], fl. c.300, Greek mathematician of Alexandria. He recorded and enlarged on the results of his predecessors, including Euclid and Apollonius of Perga, in his Mathematical Collect...

P

(Encyclopedia)P, 16th letter of the alphabet, representing the voiceless bilabial stop. It corresponds to Greek pi, but in form it looks like Greek rho (see R). For the technical use of P in higher criticism, see O...

Stesichorus

(Encyclopedia)Stesichorus stēsĭkˈərəs [key], fl. c.600 b.c., Greek lyric poet. He lived at Himera, Sicily, and seems to have been originally named Tisias or Teisias. Legend says he invented the choral “heroi...

Leighton, Robert

(Encyclopedia)Leighton, Robert, 1611–84, Scottish prelate and classical scholar. After several years in France, where he seems to have developed an admiration for the Jansenists, he became (1641) a Presbyterian m...

mufti

(Encyclopedia)mufti mŭfˈtē [key], in Islamic law, attorney or judicial/religious scholar who writes his opinion (fatwa) on legal subjects for private clients or to assist judges in deciding cases. The recorded o...

Gipson, Lawrence Henry

(Encyclopedia)Gipson, Lawrence Henry gĭpˈsən [key], 1880–1971, American historian, b. Greeley, Colo. A Rhodes scholar, he received his Ph.D. from Yale in 1918 and taught at several schools before becoming (192...

Geiger, Abraham

(Encyclopedia)Geiger, Abraham gīˈgər [key], 1810–74, German rabbi, Semitic scholar and Orientalist, theologian, and foremost exponent of the Reform movement in Judaism. When he received his doctorate (1833) fr...

Gamaliel of Jabneh

(Encyclopedia)Gamaliel of Jabneh jăbˈnē [key], fl. a.d. 100, Jewish scholar; grandson of the Gamaliel who, according to tradition, taught St. Paul the law. A Palestinian Tanna, he succeeded Johanan ben Zakkai as...

FitzGerald, Edward

(Encyclopedia)FitzGerald, Edward, 1809–83, English man of letters. A dilettante and scholar, FitzGerald spent most of his life living in seclusion in Suffolk. His masterpiece, a translation of The Rubaiyat of Oma...

Flanagan, Richard

(Encyclopedia)Flanagan, Richard, 1961–, Australian novelist, b. Longford, Tasmania, studied Univ. of Tasmania (grad. 1982), Oxford (Rhodes scholar). Flanagan, whose novels explore the past and present of his nati...