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Wilder, Thornton Niven

(Encyclopedia)Wilder, Thornton Niven, 1897–1975, American playwright and novelist, b. Madison, Wis., grad. Yale (B.A., 1920), Princeton (M.A., 1925). He received most of his early education in China, where his fa...

fullerene

(Encyclopedia)fullerene, any of a class of carbon molecules in which the carbon atoms are arranged into 12 pentagonal faces and 2 or more hexagonal faces to form a hollow sphere, cylinder, or similar figure. The sm...

God Save the King

(Encyclopedia)God Save the King (or Queen), the English national anthem. The words and music are both of doubtful origin. The air, possibly derived from a folk tune, has been attributed to Henry Carey (whose claim ...

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, ...

Richardson, Dorothy M.

(Encyclopedia)Richardson, Dorothy M., 1882–1957, English novelist. Her important work is Pilgrimage (12 vol., 1915–38; omnibus ed. 1938), a novel that records in great detail the inner experience of one woman. ...

collage

(Encyclopedia)collage kəläzhˈ, kō– [key] [Fr.,=pasting], technique in art consisting of cutting and pasting natural or manufactured materials to a painted or unpainted surface—hence, a work of art in this m...

Prendergast, Maurice Brazil

(Encyclopedia)Prendergast, Maurice Brazil, 1859–1924, American painter, b. St. John's, N.L., Canada, educated in Boston. In 1886 he worked his way to Europe on a cattle boat and studied in Paris at Julian's and a...

Puryear, Martin

(Encyclopedia)Puryear, Martin, 1941–2019, American sculptor, b. Washington, D.C. An African American, he served in the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, and became interested in African crafts and in the themes of cap...

World's Columbian Exposition

(Encyclopedia)World's Columbian Exposition, held at Chicago, May–Nov., 1893, in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Authorized (1890) by Congress, it was pl...

open education

(Encyclopedia)open education, also known as open classroom, type of educational reform. The central tenet of this informal system is that children want to learn and will do so naturally if left to their own initiat...