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molecular modeling

(Encyclopedia)molecular modeling, the computer simulation, by various means, of chemical structures or processes. Special computer-graphics programs can display three-dimensional images of molecular structures and ...

Miki, Takeo

(Encyclopedia)Miki, Takeo, 1907–88, Japanese politician, prime minister of Japan (1974–76). He attended Meiji Univ. and the Univ. of California, Los Angeles, and was first elected to the Diet in 1937. An advoca...

Libby, Willard Frank

(Encyclopedia)Libby, Willard Frank, 1908–80, American chemist, b. Grand Valley, Colo., grad. Univ. of California (B.S., 1931; Ph.D., 1933). He taught (1933–45) at the Univ. of California and was a chemist (1941...

Itaipú Dam

(Encyclopedia)Itaipú Dam ētīˈpo͞o [key], hydroelectric dam on the Paraná River, on the Brazil-Paraguay border. Jointly constructed (1975–91) by Brazil and Paraguay, it is the second-largest hydroelectric da...

Chamberlain, Owen

(Encyclopedia)Chamberlain, Owen, 1920–2006, American physicist, b. San Francisco, Calif., Ph.D. Univ. of Chicago, 1948. He was on the faculty at the Univ. of California, Berkeley, from 1949 until his retirement i...

shock wave

(Encyclopedia)shock wave, wave formed of a zone of extremely high pressure within a fluid, especially the atmosphere, that propagates through the fluid at a speed in excess of the speed of sound. A shock wave is ca...

Ball, Lucille

(Encyclopedia)Ball, Lucille, 1911–89, American actress and producer, b. Celoron, N.Y. At first promoted by Hollywood as another glamorous movie star, Ball was often cast as a spunky sidekick in second features. I...

Rabi, Isidor Isaac

(Encyclopedia)Rabi, Isidor Isaac rŏbˈē [key], 1898–1988, American physicist, b. Austria, grad. Cornell, 1919, Ph.D. Columbia, 1927. A teacher at Columbia from 1929, he became professor of physics in 1937. He i...

Nordhaus, William Dabney

(Encyclopedia)Nordhaus, William Dabney, 1941–, American economist, b. Albuquerque, N.Mex., Ph.D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1967. A professor at Yale since 1967, he has focused on the economic effects...

Walker, Sir John Ernest

(Encyclopedia)Walker, Sir John Ernest, 1941–, English biochemist, Ph.D. Oxford, 1969. He has been a researcher at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge since 1974. In 1997 Walk...