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Urey, Harold Clayton

(Encyclopedia)Urey, Harold Clayton yo͝orˈē [key], 1893–1981, American chemist, b. Walkerton, Ind., grad. Univ. of Montana (B.S., 1917), Ph.D. Univ. of California, 1923. He taught at Johns Hopkins (1924–29), ...

Jovian planets

(Encyclopedia)Jovian planets, the planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. They are all larger and more massive than the earth. Since they rotate faster, they are more flattened at the poles than are the terre...

cobalt, chemical element

(Encyclopedia)cobalt, metallic chemical element; symbol Co; at. no. 27; at. wt. 58.9332; m.p. 1,495℃; b.p. about 2,870℃; sp. gr. 8.9 at 20℃; valence +2 or +3. Cobalt is a silver-white, lustrous, hard, brittle...

autotroph

(Encyclopedia)autotroph ôtˈətrōfˌ [key], in biology, an organism capable of synthesizing its own organic substances from inorganic compounds. Autotrophs produce their own sugars, lipids, and amino acids using ...

Lamb, Willis Eugene, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Lamb, Willis Eugene, Jr., 1913–2008, American physicist, b. Los Angeles, Ph.D. Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1938. Lamb was a professor at Columbia (1938–51), Stanford (1951–56), Oxford (1956�...

Sakharov, Andrei Dmitriyevich

(Encyclopedia)Sakharov, Andrei Dmitriyevich, 1921–89, Soviet nuclear physicist and human-rights advocate; first Soviet citizen to receive the Nobel Peace Prize (1975). From 1948 to 1956 he helped to develop the U...

Ramsey, Norman Foster, Jr.

(Encyclopedia)Ramsey, Norman Foster, Jr., 1915–2011, American physicist, b. Washington, D.C., Ph.D. Columbia, 1940. A member of the faculty at Harvard from 1947 and the Higgins professor of physics from 1966 (eme...

Andrée, Salomon August

(Encyclopedia)Andrée, Salomon August säˈlo͞omôn ouˈgəst ändrāˈ [key], 1854–97, Swedish polar explorer, grad. Royal Inst. of Technology, Stockholm. An aeronautical engineer and head of the Swedish patent...

‘Oumuamua

(Encyclopedia)‘Oumuamua ōmo͞oˈəmo͞oˈə [key], officially 1I/2017 U1 (‘Oumuamua), interstellar object, the first to be discovered in the solar system. Highly variable in brightness, it also is highly and u...

Freon

(Encyclopedia)Freon frēˈŏn [key] [trade name], any one of a special class of chemical compounds that are used as refrigerants, aerosol propellants, and solvents. These compounds are haloalkanes, i.e., halogen de...