Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Emerald ... emptiness

Emerald: town, central Queensland, Australia, on the Nogoa River, at the junction of the Capricorn and Gregory highways, 172 miles (276 km) west of Rockhampton. P.F. MacDonald, an early settler, established Emerald Downs station (ranch) in the 1860s. In the 1880s ...
emergence: in evolutionary theory, the rise of a system that cannot be predicted or explained from antecedent conditions. George Henry Lewes, the 19th-century English philosopher of science, distinguished between resultants and emergents-phenomena that are predictable from their constituent parts and those ...
emergency medicine: medical specialty emphasizing the immediacy of treatment of acutely ill or injured individuals.
Emerson College: private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. It is a specialized college with a focus on communication and the performing arts. The college offers master's degree programs in the divisions of communication studies, mass communication, performing arts, ...
Emerson, Ellen Russell: American ethnologist, noted for her extensive examinations of Native American cultures, especially in comparison with other world cultures.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer: British band known for its role in the development of art rock during the 1970s. The members were Keith Emerson (b. Nov. 1, 1944, Todmorden, Lancashire, Eng., ), Greg Lake (b. Nov. 10, 1948, Bournemouth, Dorset, ), and Carl Palmer ...
Emerson, Peter Henry: English photographer who promoted photography as an independent art form and created an aesthetic theory called "naturalistic photography."
Emerson, Ralph Waldo: American lecturer, poet, and essayist, the leading exponent of New England Transcendentalism.
emery: granular rock consisting of a mixture of the mineral corundum (aluminum oxide, Al₂O₃) and iron oxides such as magnetite (Fe₃O₄) or hematite (Fe₂O₃). Long used as an abrasive or polishing material, it is a dark-coloured, dense substance, having much the ...
emigration: the departure from a country for life or residence in another. See human migration.
emigre: any of the Frenchmen, at first mostly aristocrats, who fled France in the years following the French Revolution of 1789. From their places of exile in other countries, many emigres plotted against the Revolutionary government, seeking foreign help in their ...
Emilia-Romagna: regione, north-central Italy. It comprises the provincie of Bologna, Ferrara, Forli, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, Ravenna, Reggio nell'Emilia, and Rimini. The region extends from the Adriatic Sea (east) almost across the peninsula between the Po River (north) and the Ligurian and ...
EMILY's List: American political program and donor network dedicated to identifying and helping to elect to political office Democratic women candidates who favour the right of women to choose to have an abortion. The organization, founded in 1985, works with both state ...
Emin Pasa, Mehmed: physician, explorer, and governor of the Equatorial province of Egyptian Sudan who contributed vastly to the knowledge of African geography, natural history, ethnology, and languages.
eminent domain: power of government to take private property for public use without the owner's consent. Constitutional provisions in most countries require the payment of compensation to the owner. In countries with unwritten constitutions, such as England, the supremacy of Parliament makes ...
Eminescu, Mihail: poet who transformed both the form and content of Romanian poetry, creating a school of poetry that strongly influenced Romanian writers and poets in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
emir: ("commander," or "prince"), in the Muslim Middle East, a military commander, governor of a province, or a high military official. Under the Umayyads, the emir exercised administrative and financial powers, somewhat diminished under the 'Abbasids, who introduced a separate financial ...
emission nebula: in astronomy, a bright, diffuse light sometimes associated with supernova remnants or with stars whose temperatures exceed 20,000 K. The excitation process necessary to provide observed optical and radio energies in such gaseous regions was long an astronomical puzzle. Spectral ...
emission-control system: in automotive engineering, means employed to limit the discharge of noxious gases from the internal-combustion engine. There are four main sources of these gases: the engine exhaust, the crankcase, the fuel tank, and the carburetor. The exhaust pipe discharges burned ...
Emlyn, Thomas: English Presbyterian minister and writer who first publicly adopted the name Unitarian to designate a liberal, rational approach to God as a single person (as opposed to Christian belief in the Trinity).
Emma-o: in Japanese Buddhist mythology, the overlord of hell (Jigoku), corresponding to the Indian deity Yama. He judges the souls of men, while his sister judges the souls of women. The sinner is sent to one of the 16 regions of ...
Emmanuel Philibert: duke of Savoy who recovered most of the lands his father Charles III had lost to France and Spain. A skilled soldier and a wily diplomat, he was also an able administrator who restored economic equilibrium to Savoy while freeing ...
Emmen: gemeente (municipality), Drenthe provincie (province), northeastern Netherlands, on the Hondsrug ridge. It was a centre of the fen colonies (veenkolonien) established in the 19th century to convert the surrounding peat fields to agricultural use. As peat digging declined after 1920, ...
Emmentaler: cow's-milk cheese of Switzerland made by a process that originated in the Emme River valley (Emmental) in the canton of Bern. The essential process is followed in most other dairying countries, notably Norway, where the Jarlsberg variety is outstanding, and ...
Emmerick, Blessed Anna Katharina: German nun and mystic whose visions were recorded in The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1833), by the German Romantic writer Clemens Brentano.
Emmet, Robert: Irish nationalist leader who inspired the abortive rising of 1803, remembered as a romantic hero of Irish lost causes.
Emmet, Thomas Addis: lawyer in Ireland and, later, in the United States, a leader of the nationalist Society of United Irishmen, and elder brother of the Irish revolutionary Robert Emmet.
Emmett, Daniel Decatur: U.S. composer of "Dixie" (q.v.) and organizer of one of the first minstrel show troupes.
Emmitsburg: town, Frederick county, northern Maryland, U.S., near the Pennsylvania border, 23 miles (37 km) north-northeast of Frederick. Settled in the 1780s as Poplar Fields or Silver Fancy, it was renamed about 1786 for a local landowner named Emmit (sources disagree ...
Emmy Award: any of the annual presentations made for outstanding achievement in television in the United States. The name Emmy derives from Immy, a nickname for image orthicon, a camera tube used in television. The Emmy Award statuette consists of a winged ...
emollient: any substance that softens the skin by slowing evaporation of water. Sesame, almond, and olive oils were used in ancient Egypt; beeswax, spermaceti, almond oil, borax, and rosewater in Greece; and lanolin (sheep fat) in medieval Europe. Modern emollients include ...
Emory University: private, coeducational institution of higher learning in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. It is affiliated with the United Methodist Church. The university consists of Emory College (a liberal arts institution), Oxford College (a two-year college), the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, ...
emotion: a distinct feeling or quality of consciousness, such as joy or sadness, that reflects the personal significance of an emotion-arousing event. In modern times the subject of emotion has become part of the subject matter of several scientific disciplines-biology, psychology, ...
Empangeni: town, northeastern KwaZulu/Natal province, South Africa, directly northwest of Richard's Bay on the Indian Ocean and northeast of Durban. The beginnings of the modern settlement can be traced to 1851, when the Norwegian Missionary Society established a station in the ...
empathy: the ability to imagine oneself in another's place and understand the other's feelings, desires, ideas, and actions. It is a term coined in the early 20th century, equivalent to the German Einfuhlung and modeled on "sympathy." The term is used ...
Empedocles: Greek philosopher, statesman, poet, religious teacher, and physiologist.
emperor: title designating the sovereigns of the ancient Roman Empire and, by derivation, various later European rulers; it is also applied loosely to certain non-European monarchs.
Emperor Jones, The: drama in eight scenes by Eugene O'Neill, produced in 1920 and published in 1921. The Emperor Jones was the playwright's first foray into Expressionist writing.
empfindsamer Stil: ("sensitivity"), important movement occurring in German instrumental music during the early 18th century and characterized by an emphasis upon the expression of a variety of deeply felt emotions within a musical work. This aesthetic is typical of an age that ...
emphysema: abnormal distension of the lungs with air. The air ducts and the air sacs, or alveoli, are distended and there is destruction of the partitions between alveoli and loss of alveoli. The exact cause and mechanism producing emphysema are not ...
emphyteusis and superficies: in Roman law, leases granted either for a long term or in perpetuity with most of the rights of full ownership, the only stipulation being that an annual rent be paid and certain improvements made to the property. Both originated ...
Empire State Building: steel-framed 102-story building completed in New York City in 1931. It rises to a height of 1,250 feet (381 m) and was the first skyscraper of such great vertical dimension. It was the highest structure in the world until 1954. ...
Empire style: major phase of Neoclassical art that flourished in France during the time of the First Empire (1804-14).
Empiricism: in philosophy, the attitude that beliefs are to be accepted and acted upon only if they first have been confirmed by actual experience. This broad definition accords with the derivation of the name from the Greek word empeiria, "experience." More ...
employee training: vocational instruction for employed persons.
Empoli: town, Firenze (Florence) provincia, Toscana (Tuscany) regione, north-central Italy, on the lower Arno River. During the medieval Florentine wars, Empoli was the scene of the Ghibelline congress of 1260, where Farinata degli Uberti successfully opposed the destruction of defeated Florence, ...
Emporia: city, seat (1860) of Lyon county, east-central Kansas, U.S. It lies between the Cottonwood and Neosho rivers. Established in 1857 by a town company whose charter prohibited the sale and consumption of alcohol within the town site, it was named ...
Emporia State University: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Emporia, Kan., U.S. It consists of the schools of Business and of Library and Information Management, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and the Teachers College. In addition to undergraduate studies, the ...
Empson, Sir Richard: English lawyer and minister of King Henry VII, remembered, with Edmund Dudley, for his unpopular administration of the crown revenues.
Empson, Sir William: British poet and critic known for his immense influence on 20th-century literary criticism and for his rational, metaphysical poetry.
emptiness: in mysticism and religion, a state of "pure consciousness" in which the mind has been emptied of all particular objects and images; also, the undifferentiated reality (a world without distinctions and multiplicity) or quality of reality that the emptied mind ...