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Plücker, Julius

(Encyclopedia)Plücker, Julius yo͞oˈlyo͝os plüˈkər [key], 1801–68, German mathematician and physicist. He became professor of mathematics (1836) and of physics (1847) at the Univ. of Bonn. He is known for h...

Bennett, Michael

(Encyclopedia)Bennett, Michael, 1943–87, American dancer and choreographer, b. Buffalo, N.Y. He appeared in West Side Story and Subways Are for Sleeping. During the 1970s, he was one of the most successful direct...

Spassky, Boris

(Encyclopedia)Spassky, Boris, 1937–, Soviet chess champion. A child prodigy, he became an international master at the age of 16 and in 1955, at age 18, he became an international grand master. Subsequently in int...

Cunard, Sir Samuel

(Encyclopedia)Cunard, Sir Samuel kyo͞onärdˈ [key], 1787–1865, Canadian pioneer of regular transatlantic steam navigation, b. Halifax, N.S. The son of a United Empire Loyalist, he became a leading businessman o...

Communications Satellite Corporation

(Encyclopedia)Communications Satellite Corporation (Comsat), organization incorporated (1962) by an act of Congress to establish a commercial system of international communications using artificial satellites. Alth...

trapezoid

(Encyclopedia)trapezoid, closed plane figure bounded by four line segments, or sides, two of which are parallel and two of which are nonparallel. The parallel sides of a trapezoid are called bases and the nonparall...

simile

(Encyclopedia)simile sĭmˈəlē [key] [Lat.,=likeness], in rhetoric, a figure of speech in which an object is explicitly compared to another object. Robert Burns's poem “A Red Red Rose” contains two straightfo...

Christmas

(Encyclopedia)Christmas [Christ's Mass], in the Christian calendar, feast of the nativity of Jesus, celebrated in Roman Catholic and Protestant Churches on Dec. 25. In liturgical importance it ranks after Easter, P...

Sophocles

(Encyclopedia)Sophocles sŏfˈəklēz [key], c.496 b.c.–406 b.c., Greek tragic dramatist, younger contemporary of Aeschylus and older contemporary of Euripides, b. Colonus, near Athens. A man of wealth, charm, an...

Martens, Feodor

(Encyclopedia)Martens, Feodor fyôˈdər märˈtyĭns [key], 1845–1909, Russian diplomat and authority on international law. He became an official in the foreign ministry in 1868 and was professor of internationa...