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Van Vleck, John Hasbrouck

(Encyclopedia)Van Vleck, John Hasbrouck, 1899–1980, American physicist, b. Middletown, Conn., Ph.D. Harvard, 1922. As a professor at Harvard, Van Vleck developed fundamental theories on the quantum mechanics of m...

Cantor, Georg

(Encyclopedia)Cantor, Georg gāˈôrkh känˈtôr [key], 1845–1918, German mathematician, b. St. Petersburg. He studied under Karl Weierstrass and taught (1869–1913) at the Univ. of Halle. He is known for his w...

Puy de Dôme

(Encyclopedia)Puy de Dôme, extinct volcano of the Massif Central and the second highest peak (4,806 ft/1,465 m) of the Auvergne Mts., central France, W of Clermont-Ferrand. Crops are raised on the lower slopes; th...

Perry, Ralph Barton

(Encyclopedia)Perry, Ralph Barton, 1876–1957, American realist philosopher, b. Poultney, Vt., grad. Princeton (B.A., 1896) and Harvard (Ph.D., 1899). He taught at Harvard from 1902, becoming professor of philosop...

cognitive psychology

(Encyclopedia)cognitive psychology, school of psychology that examines internal mental processes such as problem solving, memory, and language. It had its foundations in the Gestalt psychology of Max Wertheimer, Wo...

fractal geometry

(Encyclopedia)fractal geometry, branch of mathematics concerned with irregular patterns made of parts that are in some way similar to the whole, e.g., twigs and tree branches, a property called self-similarity or s...

hypnotism

(Encyclopedia)hypnotism hĭpˈnətĭzəm [key] [Gr.,=putting to sleep], to induce an altered state of consciousness characterized by deep relaxation and heightened suggestibility. The term was originally coined by ...

Mondrian, Piet

(Encyclopedia)Mondrian, Piet pēt mônˈdrēän [key], 1872–1944, Dutch painter. He studied at the academy in Amsterdam and passed through an early naturalistic phase. In 1910 he went to Paris, where the influenc...

Kropotkin, Piotr Alekseyevich, Prince

(Encyclopedia)Kropotkin, Piotr Alekseyevich, Prince pyôˈtər əlyĭksyāˈĭvĭch krəpôtˈkĭn [key], 1842–1921, Russian geographer and anarchist. He came from a wealthy princely family and as a boy was a pag...

vortex

(Encyclopedia)vortex vôrˈtĕks [key], mass of fluid in whirling or rotary motion. To simplify the analysis, vortex motion usually describes motions in a frictionless fluid. In such cases the absence of friction w...