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W

(Encyclopedia)W, 23d letter of the alphabet, in form a doubled u or v. It is the usual symbol of a voiced bilabial semivowel, as in the English wing. The same semivowel occurs as second member of the dipthongs au (...

Sumner, James Batcheller

(Encyclopedia)Sumner, James Batcheller, 1887–1955, American biochemist, b. Canton, Mass., Ph.D. Harvard Medical School, 1914. He was a professor at Cornell from 1914 until his death in 1955. In 1946 Sumner was a ...

Shirley-Quirk, John Stanton

(Encyclopedia)Shirley-Quirk, John Stanton, 1931–2014, British bass-baritone. He began his career as a chemistry teacher, turning permanently to music in 1961. Acclaimed for his fine tone, diction, and phrasing, h...

Baekeland, Leo Hendrik

(Encyclopedia)Baekeland, Leo Hendrik bākˈlănd [key], 1863–1944, American chemist, b. Belgium, grad. Univ. of Ghent, 1882. In 1889 he emigrated to the United States. He founded (1893) and conducted, until 1899,...

Draper, John William

(Encyclopedia)Draper, John William, 1811–82, American scientist, philosopher, and historian, b. near Liverpool, England, M.D. Univ. of Pennsylvania, 1836. In 1839 he became professor of chemistry at the Univ. of ...

Diels, Otto Paul Hermann

(Encyclopedia)Diels, Otto Paul Hermann, 1876–1954, German chemist, Ph.D. Univ. of Berlin, 1899. From 1899 to 1915, Diehls was on the faculty at the Univ. of Berlin. In 1916, he joined the Univ. of Kiel, where he ...

Hopkins, Sir Frederick Gowland

(Encyclopedia)Hopkins, Sir Frederick Gowland, 1861–1947, English biochemist, educated at Cambridge and the Univ. of London. He was professor of biochemistry at Cambridge (1914–43). Among his contributions were ...

Heeger, Alan Jay

(Encyclopedia)Heeger, Alan Jay, 1936–, American physicist and chemist, b. Sioux City, Iowa, Ph.D. Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1961. Heeger has held faculty positions at the Univ. of Pennsylvania (1962–82) an...

gas mask

(Encyclopedia)gas mask, face covering or device used to protect the wearer from injurious gases and other noxious materials by filtering and purifying inhaled air. In addition to military use (see chemical warfare)...

Moore, Stanford

(Encyclopedia)Moore, Stanford, 1913–82, American biochemist, b. Chicago, Ph.D. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, 1938. Moore joined the faculty at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller Univ.)...