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Van Vleck, John Hasbrouck

(Encyclopedia)Van Vleck, John Hasbrouck, 1899–1980, American physicist, b. Middletown, Conn., Ph.D. Harvard, 1922. As a professor at Harvard, Van Vleck developed fundamental theories on the quantum mechanics of m...

Barbour, John

(Encyclopedia)Barbour, John bärˈbər [key], c.1316?–1395, Scottish poet. He was archdeacon of Aberdeen from 1355 until his death. His romance, The Bruce (1375), celebrating Scotland's emancipation from England,...

Cavalier poets

(Encyclopedia)Cavalier poets, a group of English poets associated with Charles I and his exiled son. Most of their work was done between c.1637 and 1660. Their poetry embodied the life and culture of upper-class, p...

Butler, John

(Encyclopedia)Butler, John, 1728–96, Loyalist commander in the American Revolution, b. New London, Conn. He served in the French and Indian Wars and distinguished himself especially by leading the Native American...

Fenwick, Sir John

(Encyclopedia)Fenwick, Sir John, 1645?–1697, English conspirator. A persistent Jacobite plotter, he was arrested in 1696 for conspiring to murder William III. In his confession he tried to implicate leading Whigs...

Flaxman, John

(Encyclopedia)Flaxman, John, 1755–1826, English sculptor and draftsman. At 20 he went to work for Josiah Wedgwood, designing the cameolike decorations for Wedgwood's pottery. Later, in Rome, he devoted himself to...

Playfair, Sir Nigel

(Encyclopedia)Playfair, Sir Nigel nīˈjəl plāˈfâr [key], 1874–1934, English actor-manager. He made his acting debut in 1902 and later appeared in major London productions of Shaw and Shakespeare. He took on ...

Plumb, Sir John Harold

(Encyclopedia)Plumb, Sir John Harold, 1911–2001, British historian. Educated at the universities of Leicester (B.A., 1933) and Cambridge (Ph.D., 1936), he remained at Cambridge as a research fellow from 1938 and ...

Evans, Sir John

(Encyclopedia)Evans, Sir John, 1823–1908, English archaeologist, geologist, and numismatist. A president of the Royal Numismatic Society and of the Society of Antiquaries, he was active also in public welfare and...

Cornforth, Sir John Warcup

(Encyclopedia)Cornforth, Sir John Warcup wôrˈkəp côrnˈfərth [key], 1917–2013, Australian chemist, Ph.D. Oxford, 1941. Although Cornforth suffered a hearing loss from childhood and was deaf by the time he gr...
 

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