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Quine, W. V.

(Encyclopedia)Quine, W. V. (Willard Van Orman Quine) kwīn [key], 1908–2000, American philosopher and mathematical logician, b. Akron, Ohio, grad. Oberlin, 1930. He studied at Harvard (Ph.D., 1932) under Alfred N...

Darwinism

(Encyclopedia)Darwinism, concept of evolution developed in the mid-19th cent. by Charles Robert Darwin. Darwin's meticulously documented observations led him to question the then current belief in special creation ...

Gautier, Théophile

(Encyclopedia)Gautier, Théophile gōtyāˈ [key], 1811–72, French poet, novelist, and critic. He was a leading exponent of “art for art's sake”—the belief that formal, aesthetic beauty is the sole purpose...

tektite

(Encyclopedia)tektite tĕktīt [key], naturally occurring, silica-rich (65%–80% SiO2) glass resembling obsidian and sometimes shale, and is normally jet black to olive green. They appear as small rounded or elong...

metamorphism

(Encyclopedia)metamorphism, in geology, process of change in the structure, texture, or composition of rocks caused by agents of heat, deforming pressure, shearing stress, hot, chemically active fluids, or a combin...

Clark, John Bates

(Encyclopedia)Clark, John Bates, 1847–1938, American economist, b. Providence, R.I. He studied economics in the U.S. and Germany, and taught at Columbia Univ. and several other colleges in the United States. In 1...

Bédier, Joseph

(Encyclopedia)Bédier, Joseph zhôzĕfˈ bādyāˈ [key], 1864–1938, French authority on medieval literature. He was professor at the Collège de France and a member of the French Academy. His reconstruction, in ...

Taliesin

(Encyclopedia)Taliesin or Taliessin both: tălēĕsˈĭn [key], 6th cent.?, Welsh bard, whose Book of Taliesin is one of the great Welsh poetic works. The book exists only in a 13th-century form, but tradition plac...

Still, Andrew Taylor

(Encyclopedia)Still, Andrew Taylor, 1828–1917, founder of osteopathy, b. Jonesboro, Va. He evolved the theory that all diseases and physical disorders ultimately derived from dislocations (which he called subluxa...

photon

(Encyclopedia)photon fōˈtŏn [key], the particle composing light and other forms of electromagnetic radiation, sometimes called light quantum. The photon has no charge and no mass. About the beginning of the 20th...
 

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