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Heath, Sir Edward Richard George

(Encyclopedia)Heath, Sir Edward Richard George, 1916–2005, British statesman. Educated at Oxford, he served in the Royal Artillery during World War II, rising to the rank of colonel. He was elected to Parliament ...

Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Baron von

(Encyclopedia)Leibniz or Leibnitz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Baron von both: gôtˈfrēt vĭlˈhĕlm bärônˈ fan līpˈnĭts [key], 1646–1716, German philosopher and mathematician, b. Leipzig. Although known primarily...

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor

(Encyclopedia)Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 1772–1834, English poet and man of letters, b. Ottery St. Mary, Devonshire; one of the most brilliant, versatile, and influential figures in the English romantic movement. ...

Defoe, Daniel

(Encyclopedia)Defoe or De Foe, Daniel dĭfōˈ [key], 1660?–1731, English writer, b. London. He was nearly sixty when he turned to writing novels. In 1719 he published his famous Life and Strange Surprising Adv...

torture

(Encyclopedia)torture, the intentional infliction of severe physical or mental pain or suffering in order to intimidate, coerce, obtain information or a confession, or punish. In international law, the term is usua...

Safdie, Moshe

(Encyclopedia)Safdie, Moshe mōshāˈ säfˈdē [key], 1938–, Israeli-Canadian architect, b. Haifa. He grew up in Israel, moved to Canada with his family at 15, studied architecture at McGill Univ. and with Louis...

sea spider

(Encyclopedia)sea spider, common name for members of the class Pycnogonida, long-legged, rather spiderlike organisms of the subphylum Chelicerata, widely distributed in marine waters. Most are tiny, from 1 to 9 mm ...

grid computing

(Encyclopedia)grid computing, the concurrent application of the processing and data storage resources of many computers in a network to a single problem. It also can be used for load balancing as well as high avail...

iceberg

(Encyclopedia)iceberg, mass of ice that has become detached, or calved, from the edge of an ice sheet or glacier and is floating on the ocean. Because ice is slightly less dense than water about one ninth of the to...

Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region

(Encyclopedia)Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region nĭngˈshyäˈ hwē [key], autonomous region (2010 pop. 6,301,350), c.25,600 sq mi (66,321 sq km), N China. The capital is Yinchuan. Ningxia is part of the Inner Mongolia...
 

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