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Lovelace, Ada

(Encyclopedia)Lovelace, Ada (Augusta Ada King-Noel, Countess of Lovelace), 1815–1852, English mathematician, b. London as Augusta Ada Byron. The daughter of the poet Lord Byron and Anne Isabella Milbanke, she was...

associative law

(Encyclopedia)associative law, in mathematics, law holding that for a given operation combining three quantities, two at a time, the initial pairing is arbitrary; e.g., using the operation of addition, the numbers ...

Beijing University

(Encyclopedia)Beijing University or Peking University, at Beijing, China; founded as Metropolitan Univ. 1898, renamed Peking Univ. 1911, absorbed nontechnical departments of Tsinghua Univ. and merged with and moved...

Archimedes

(Encyclopedia)Archimedes ärkĭmēˈdēz [key], 287–212 b.c., Greek mathematician, physicist, and inventor. He is famous for his work in geometry (on the circle, sphere, cylinder, and parabola), physics, mechanic...

plagues of Egypt

(Encyclopedia)plagues of Egypt, in the Bible, the plagues and other troubles brought on Egypt by God through the hands of Moses, because Pharaoh would not let the people of Israel go out of Egypt. The account, in t...

center of mass

(Encyclopedia)center of mass, the point at which all the mass of a body may be considered to be concentrated in analyzing its motion. The center of mass of a sphere of uniform density coincides with the center of t...

York, house of

(Encyclopedia)York, house of, royal house of England, deriving its name from the creation of Edmund of Langley, fifth son of Edward III, as duke of York in 1385. The claims to the throne of Edmund's grandson, Richa...

conflict of laws

(Encyclopedia)conflict of laws, that part of the law in each state, country, or other jurisdiction that determines whether, in dealing with a particular legal situation, its law or the law of some other jurisdictio...

Confederation, Articles of

(Encyclopedia)Confederation, Articles of, in U.S. history, ratified in 1781 and superseded by the Constitution of the United States in 1789. The imperative need for unity among the new states created by the America...

Provisions of Oxford

(Encyclopedia)Provisions of Oxford, 1258, a scheme of governmental reform forced upon Henry III of England by his barons. In 1258 a group of barons, angered by the king's Sicilian adventure and the expenditures it ...