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photon

(Encyclopedia)photon fōˈtŏn [key], the particle composing light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation, sometimes called light quantum. The photon has no charge and no mass. About the beginning of the 20th...

Cash, Johnny

(Encyclopedia)Cash, Johnny, 1932–2003, American singer and songwriter, b. Kingsland, Ark. Born to a farm family, he went to Memphis in 1955 and recorded such hits as “I Walk the Line” (1956) and “Ring of Fi...

Quine, W. V.

(Encyclopedia)Quine, W. V. (Willard Van Orman Quine) kwīn [key], 1908–2000, American philosopher and mathematical logician, b. Akron, Ohio, grad. Oberlin, 1930. He studied at Harvard (Ph.D., 1932) under Alfred N...

vibration

(Encyclopedia)vibration, in physics, commonly an oscillatory motion—a movement first in one direction and then back again in the opposite direction. It is exhibited, for example, by a swinging pendulum, by the pr...

impressionism, in painting

(Encyclopedia)impressionism, in painting, late-19th-century French school that was generally characterized by the attempt to depict transitory visual impressions, often painted directly from nature, and by the use ...

liquid

(Encyclopedia)liquid, one of the three commonly recognized states in which matter occurs, i.e., that state, as distinguished from solid and gas, in which a substance has a definite volume but no definite shape. T...

recycling

(Encyclopedia)recycling, the process of recovering and reusing waste products—from household use, manufacturing, agriculture, and business—and thereby reducing their burden on the environment. During World War ...

rock

(Encyclopedia)rock, aggregation of solid matter composed of one or more of the minerals forming the earth's crust. The scientific study of rocks is called petrology. Rocks are commonly divided, according to their o...

still life

(Encyclopedia)still life, a pictorial representation of inanimate objects. The term derives from the 17th-century Dutch still-leven, meaning a motionless natural object or objects. In East Asia still-life subj...

atom

(Encyclopedia)CE5 Bohr-Rutherford atom CE5 Probability distribution of the electron in the hydrogen atom: A. Ground state B. Highly excited state atom [Gr.,=uncuttable (indivisible)], basic unit of matte...