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water, desalination of

(Encyclopedia)water, desalination of, process of removing soluble salts from water to render it suitable for drinking, irrigation, or industrial uses. The principal methods used for desalination include distillatio...

Alexander of Hales

(Encyclopedia)Alexander of Hales, d. 1245, English scholastic philosopher, called the Unanswerable Doctor by his fellow scholastics. He was a Franciscan and a lecturer at the Univ. of Paris. His Summa universae the...

gravitation

(Encyclopedia)gravitation, the attractive force existing between any two particles of matter. The term gravitygravity is commonly used synonymously with gravitation, but in correct usage a definite distinction is...

universe

(Encyclopedia)universe, totality of matter and energy in existence. The study of the origin of the universe, or cosmos, is known as cosmogony, and that of its structure and evolution, cosmology. The age of the univ...

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

(Encyclopedia)Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), physical science research center located near Batavia, Ill., est. 1968 as the National Accelerator Laboratory, renamed 1974 in honor of Enrico Fermi. ...

inorganic chemistry

(Encyclopedia)inorganic chemistry, the study of all the elements and their compounds with the exception of carbon and its compounds, which fall under the category of organic chemistry. Inorganic chemistry investiga...

plasma

(Encyclopedia)plasma, in physics, fully ionized gas of low density, containing approximately equal numbers of positive and negative ions (see electron and ion). It is electrically conductive and is affected by magn...

cosmology

(Encyclopedia)cosmology, area of science that aims at a comprehensive theory of the structure and evolution of the entire physical universe. The earliest pre-Ptolemaic theories assumed that the earth was the cent...

black hole

(Encyclopedia)black hole, in astronomy, celestial object of such extremely intense gravity that it attracts everything near it and in some instances prevents everything, including light, from escaping. The term was...

Charles III, king of Spain, and of Naples and Sicily

(Encyclopedia)Charles III, 1716–88, king of Spain (1759–88) and of Naples and Sicily (1735–59), son of Philip V and Elizabeth Farnese. Recognized as duke of Parma and Piacenza in 1731, he relinquished the duc...