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Meitner, Lise

(Encyclopedia)Meitner, Lise lēˈzə mītˈnər [key], 1878–1968, Austrian-Swedish physicist and mathematician. She was professor at the Univ. of Berlin (1926–33). A refugee from Germany after 1938, she became ...

liquid crystal

(Encyclopedia)liquid crystal, liquid whose component particles, atoms or molecules, tend to arrange themselves with a degree of order far exceeding that found in ordinary liquids and approaching that of solid cryst...

Kuczynski Godard, Pedro Pablo

(Encyclopedia)Kuczynski Godard, Pedro Pablo, 1938–, Peruvian economist and political leader, president of Peru (2016–18), grad. Oxford (B.A. 1960), Princeton (M.A., 1961). He was an economist with the World Ban...

plasma

(Encyclopedia)plasma, in physics, fully ionized gas of low density, containing approximately equal numbers of positive and negative ions (see electron and ion). It is electrically conductive and is affected by magn...

supersymmetry

(Encyclopedia)supersymmetry, in physics, theory concerning the relationship of the elementary particles called boson to those known as fermions, and vice versa, and linking the four fundamental forces. In supersymm...

Alvarez, Luis Walter

(Encyclopedia)Alvarez, Luis Walter, 1911–88, American physicist, b. San Francisco, grad. Univ. of Chicago, 1932, Ph.D. 1936. He was awarded the 1968 Nobel Prize in Physics for his discovery of a large number of r...

Kelvin, William Thomson, 1st Baron

(Encyclopedia)Kelvin, William Thomson, 1st Baron, 1824–1907, British mathematician and physicist, b. Belfast. He was professor of natural philosophy at the Univ. of Glasgow (1846–99). He is known especially for...

quantum electrodynamics

(Encyclopedia)quantum electrodynamics (QED), quantum field theory that describes the properties of electromagnetic radiation and its interaction with electrically charged matter in the framework of quantum theory. ...

shale

(Encyclopedia)shale, sedimentary rock formed by the consolidation of mud or clay, having the property of splitting into thin layers parallel to its bedding planes. Shale tends to be fissile, i.e., it tends to split...

cabinet

(Encyclopedia)cabinet, group of advisers to the head of the state who themselves are usually the heads of the administrative government departments. The nature of the cabinet differs widely in various countries. In...