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Kirchhoff's laws

(Encyclopedia)Kirchhoff's laws [for Gustav R. Kirchhoff], pair of laws stating general restrictions on the current and voltage in an electric circuit. The first of these states that at any given instant the sum of ...

liquor laws

(Encyclopedia)liquor laws, legislation designed to restrict, regulate, or totally abolish the manufacture, sale, and use of alcoholic beverages. The passage of liquor laws has been prompted chiefly by the desire to...

sunset laws

(Encyclopedia)sunset laws, statutes that deal with the tendency of government agencies and programs to be self-perpetuating by providing for their periodic review. ...

Germanic laws

(Encyclopedia)Germanic laws, customary law codes of the Germans before their contact with the Romans. They are unknown to us except through casual references of ancient authors and inferences from the codes compile...

sunshine laws

(Encyclopedia)sunshine laws: see Freedom of Information Act. ...

New Laws

(Encyclopedia)New Laws: see Las Casas, Bartolomé de. ...

gas laws

(Encyclopedia)gas laws, physical laws describing the behavior of a gas under various conditions of pressure, volume, and temperature. Experimental results indicate that all real gases behave in approximately the sa...

fugitive slave laws

(Encyclopedia)fugitive slave laws, in U.S. history, the federal acts of 1793 and 1850 providing for the return between states of escaped black slaves. Similar laws existing in both North and South in colonial days ...

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