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Coolidge, William David

(Encyclopedia)Coolidge, William David, 1873–1975, American physical chemist, b. Hudson, Mass., grad. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1896. He joined the General Electric Company in 1905 and served as direc...

cosmic rays

(Encyclopedia)cosmic rays, charged particles moving at nearly the speed of light reaching the earth from outer space. Primary cosmic rays consist mostly of protons (nuclei of hydrogen atoms), some alpha particles (...

Karle, Jerome

(Encyclopedia)Karle, Jerome kärl [key], 1918–2013, American physicist, b. New York City, Ph.D. Univ. of Michigan, 1943. He worked on the Manhattan Project before beginning a career (1946–2009) at the U.S. Nava...

Giacconi, Riccardo

(Encyclopedia)Giacconi, Riccardo, 1931–2018, Italian-American astrophysicist, b. Milan, Italy, Ph.D. Univ. of Milan 1954. He was a researcher at American Science and Engineering Corporation (1959–73), professor...

Perutz, Max Ferdinand

(Encyclopedia)Perutz, Max Ferdinand, 1914–2002, British molecular biologist, b. Vienna. One of the pioneers in the field of molecular biology, Perutz studied chemistry at the Univ. of Vienna (1932–36) and then ...

Abbott, Berenice

(Encyclopedia)Abbott, Berenice bĕrˌənēsˈ [key], 1898–1991, American photographer, b. Springfield, Ohio. Abbott, who had left (1918) the Midwest for Greenwich Village, then (1921) Paris, had become a sculptor...

Tokyo, University of

(Encyclopedia)Tokyo, University of, at Tokyo, Japan; founded in 1877. In the 1920s it became one of the first Imperial universities and remains one of the most prestigious in Japan. It offers degrees in letters, la...

body language

(Encyclopedia)body language, nonverbal communication by means of facial expessions, eye behavior, gestures, posture, and the like. Body language expresses emotions, feelings, and attitudes, sometimes even contradic...

Wilkins, Maurice Hugh Frederick

(Encyclopedia)Wilkins, Maurice Hugh Frederick, 1916–2004, British biophysicist, b. New Zealand, Ph.D. Univ. of Birmingham, 1940. He conducted research at the Univ. of St. Andrews, Scotland, and at Kings College, ...

Barkla, Charles Glover

(Encyclopedia)Barkla, Charles Glover glŭˈvər bärˈklə [key], 1877–1944, English physicist. He was professor of natural philosophy at Edinburgh from 1913. For his discovery of the characteristic X rays of ele...