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volt

(Encyclopedia)volt [for Alessandro Volta], abbr. V, unit of electric potential and electromotive force. It is defined as the difference of electric potential existing across the ends of a conductor carrying a const...

Kings Canyon National Park

(Encyclopedia)Kings Canyon National Park, 461,901 acres (187,070 hectares), E central California. Largely wilderness, the park features summits of the High Sierra and two enormous canyons on the Kings River. Genera...

Flaming Gorge Dam

(Encyclopedia)Flaming Gorge Dam, in a deep canyon of the Green River, NE Utah; built 1958–63 by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation as a major unit in the Colorado River storage project. The dam regulates the flow of ...

Championnet, Jean Étienne

(Encyclopedia)Championnet, Jean Étienne zhäN ātyĕnˈ shäNpyônĕˈ [key], 1762–1800, French general in the French Revolutionary Wars. Placed in command of the Army of Rome in 1798, he captured (1799) Naples ...

potential, electric

(Encyclopedia)potential, electric, work per unit of electric charge expended in moving a charged body from a reference point to any given point in an electric field (see electrostatics). The potential at the refere...

turn and bank indicator

(Encyclopedia)turn and bank indicator, aircraft instrument containing one indicator to show turning, or rotation about the vertical axis, and another to show banking, or rotation about the longitudinal axis. The tw...

Thomas, Edward Donnall

(Encyclopedia)Thomas, Edward Donnall, 1920–2012, American surgeon, b. Mart, Tex., M.D. Harvard, 1946. At the Univ. of Washington from 1963 (emeritus from 1990), Thomas performed (1969) the first successful bone m...

Rhaeto-Romanic

(Encyclopedia)Rhaeto-Romanic rēˈtō-rōmănˈĭk [key], generic name for several related dialects of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Romance languages). The...

note, in music

(Encyclopedia)note, in musical notation, symbol placed on or between the lines of a staff to indicate the pitch and the relative duration of the tone to be produced by voice or instrument. The largest note value in...

Volta, Alessandro, Conte

(Encyclopedia)Volta, Alessandro, Conte älĕs-sänˈdrō kônˈtā vôlˈtä [key], 1745–1827, Italian physicist. He was professor of physics at the Univ. of Pavia from 1779 and became famous for his work in elec...