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Gossen, Hermann Heinrich

(Encyclopedia)Gossen, Hermann Heinrich hĕrˈmän hīnˈrĭkh gôˈsən [key], 1810–58, German economist, little known in his lifetime. His work, Entwicklung der Gesetze des menschlichen Verkehrs und der daraus f...

quaestor

(Encyclopedia)quaestor kwĕsˈtôr [key], Roman magistrate, with responsibility for the treasury; in early times a quaestor also had judicial powers. At first there were two quaestors. Sulla named 20, and Caesar se...

Grimaldi, Francesco Maria

(Encyclopedia)Grimaldi, Francesco Maria fränchāsˈkō märēˈä grēmälˈdē [key], 1618?–1663, Italian physicist and mathematician. A Jesuit and professor at Bologna, he studied in detail and named the dark ...

Habash al-Hasib

(Encyclopedia)Habash al-Hasib häbäshˈ äl-häsēbˈ [key], d. c.870, Arab mathematician and astronomer. Habash al-Hasib was born in what is now Mary, Turkmenistan, and worked in Baghdad. He calculated tables of ...

Arago, Dominique François

(Encyclopedia)Arago, Dominique François dômēnēkˈ fräNswäˈ ärägōˈ [key], 1786–1853, French physicist and astronomer. He is noted for his discoveries in magnetism and optics as well as for his astronomi...

Planck's constant

(Encyclopedia)Planck's constant plängks [key], fundamental constant of the quantum theory. It is represented by the letter h and has a value of 6.62607 × 10−34 joule-second. The combination h/2π, denoted by h ...

nihilism

(Encyclopedia)nihilism nīˈəlĭzəm [key], theory of revolution popular among Russian extremists until the fall of the czarist government (1917); the theory was given its name by Ivan Turgenev in his novel Father...

Lorentz, Hendrik Antoon

(Encyclopedia)Lorentz, Hendrik Antoon hĕnˈdrək änˈtōn lōˈrĕnts [key], 1853–1928, Dutch physicist, a pioneer in formulating the relations between electricity, magnetism, and light. He was one of the first...

Kahneman, Daniel

(Encyclopedia)Kahneman, Daniel, 1934–, Israeli-American psychologist, b. Tel Aviv, Ph.D. Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1961. Born to Lithuanian parents, he spent his youth in France, and immigrated to what soon ...

natural rights

(Encyclopedia)natural rights, political theory that maintains that an individual enters into society with certain basic rights and that no government can deny these rights. The modern idea of natural rights grew ou...