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Hirschfeld, Al

(Encyclopedia)Hirschfeld, Al (Albert Hirschfeld) hûrshˈfĕld [key], 1903–2003, American graphic artist, b. St. Louis. He and his family moved to New York City when he was 12, and he studied art there and in Par...

John IV, king of Portugal

(Encyclopedia)John IV, 1604–56, king of Portugal (1640–56). He succeeded as duke of Braganza in 1630. Descended from Manuel I and in illegitimate line from John I, he had the strongest claim to the Portuguese t...

parabola

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Parabola parabola pərăbˈələ [key], plane curve consisting of all points equidistant from a given fixed point (focus) and a given fixed line (directrix) (see illustration). It is the conic...

roller skating

(Encyclopedia)roller skating, gliding on a hard, smooth, durable surface on skates with rollers or wheels, in recent years has become a popular adult sport. Skates mounted on wooden rollers date from the 1860s, and...

airmail

(Encyclopedia)airmail, transport of mail by airplanes. Demonstration flights that showed the feasibility of carrying mail by air were made in Great Britain and in the United States in 1911. In the United States, af...

Raman effect

(Encyclopedia)Raman effect räˈmən [key], appearance of additional lines in the spectrum of monochromatic light that has been scattered by a transparent material medium. The effect was discovered by C. V. Raman i...

Great Dividing Range

(Encyclopedia)Great Dividing Range, crest line of the Eastern Highlands of Australia. For the most part it separates rivers draining into the Pacific Ocean from those flowing into the Indian Ocean and the Arafura S...

Uranium City

(Encyclopedia)Uranium City, town, NW Sask., Canada, on Lake Athabasca near the Northwest Territories line. A large uranium-mining area from the 1950s, the closure of its mines in 1982 has led to economic collapse. ...

circle

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Circle circle, closed plane curve consisting of all points at a given distance from some fixed point, called the center. A circle is a conic section cut by a plane perpendicular to the axis of...

contour

(Encyclopedia)contour or contour line, line on a topographic map connecting points of equal elevation above or below mean sea level. It is thus a kind of isopleth, or line of equal quantity. Contour lines are drawn...