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depilatory

(Encyclopedia)depilatory dĭpĭlˈətôrˌē [key], substance used to remove hair. In preparing hides for tanning, lime is the chief depilatory. For the removal of superfluous hair from the human body, metal sulfid...

Coulomb, Charles Augustin de

(Encyclopedia)Coulomb, Charles Augustin de ko͞oˈlŏm, ko͞olŏmˈ, Fr. shärl ōgüstăNˈ də ko͞olôNˈ [key], 1736–1806, French physicist. In 1789 he retired from his posts as military engineer and as super...

Davy, Sir Humphry

(Encyclopedia)Davy, Sir Humphry, 1778–1829, English chemist and physicist. The son of a woodcarver, he received his early education at Truro and was apprenticed (1795) to a surgeon-apothecary at Penzance. While d...

Clausius, Rudolf Julius Emanuel

(Encyclopedia)Clausius, Rudolf Julius Emanuel ro͞oˈdôlf yo͞oˈlyo͝os āmäˈno͞oĕl klouˈzēo͝os [key], 1822–88, German mathematical physicist. A pioneer in the science of thermodynamics, he introduced th...

Goodenough, John Bannister

(Encyclopedia)Goodenough, John Bannister, 1922–2023, American physicist, b. Jena, Germany, Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1952. Goodenough was a researcher at the Massachu...

Giaever, Ivar

(Encyclopedia)Giaever, Ivar, 1929–, Norwegian-American physicist, Ph.D. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 1964. He was a researcher at General Electric from 1954 to 1988, when he joined the faculty at his alma ma...

New York, New Haven, and Hartford RR

(Encyclopedia)New York, New Haven, and Hartford RR, commonly called the New Haven RR; inc. 1872. Between 1872 and 1920, when dozens of small railroads were completed under the direction of financier John P. Morgan ...

Nernst, Walther Hermann

(Encyclopedia)Nernst, Walther Hermann välˈtər hĕrˈmän nĕrnst [key], 1864–1941, German physicist and chemist, a founder of modern physical chemistry. After doing outstanding research on osmotic pressure and...

Ohm's law

(Encyclopedia)Ohm's law ōm [key] [for G. S. Ohm], law stating that the electric current i flowing through a given resistance r is equal to the applied voltage v divided by the resistance, or i=v/r. For general app...

waveguide

(Encyclopedia)waveguide, device that controls the propagation of an electromagnetic wave so that the wave is forced to follow a path defined by the physical structure of the guide. Waveguides, which are useful chie...