Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Foster, Jodie ... fourteener

Foster, Jodie: American motion-picture actress who began her career as a tomboyish and mature child actress. Although she has demonstrated a flair for comedy, she is best known for her dramatic portrayals of misfit characters set against intimidating challenges.
Foster, John W: diplomat and U.S. secretary of state (1892-93) who negotiated an ill-fated treaty for the annexation of Hawaii.
Foster, Rube: American baseball player who gained fame as a pitcher, manager, and owner and as the "father of black baseball" after founding in 1920 the Negro National League (NNL), the first successful professional league for African American ballplayers.
Foster, Sir George Eulas: Canadian statesman who became prominent as minister of trade and commerce in the Sir Robert Laird Borden government (1911-20), which gained increasing recognition for Canada in international affairs. Foster founded the National Research Council in Canada and established the Dominion ...
Foster, Sir Michael: English physiologist and educator who introduced modern methods of teaching biology and physiology that emphasize laboratory training.
Foster, Sir Norman: prominent British architect known for his sleek, modern buildings made of steel and glass.
Foster, Stephen: American composer whose popular minstrel songs and sentimental ballads achieved for him an honoured place in the music of the United States.
Foster, William Z: American labour agitator and Communist Party leader who ran for the presidency in 1924, 1928, and 1932.
Fothergill, John: physician who was the first to record coronary arteriosclerosis (hardening of the walls of the arteries supplying blood to the heart muscle) in association with a case of angina pectoris.
Fothergilla: genus for about five species of deciduous shrubs of the witch hazel family (Hamamelidaceae) native to the southeastern United States and sometimes planted as ornamentals for their spring flowering and their fall colour. Their flowers lack petals but produce conspicuous ...
Fotoform: group of photographers in Germany after World War II who, headed by Otto Steinert (a physician who abandoned medicine for photography), reexplored the photographic techniques developed at the Bauhaus, the most advanced school of design in Germany between World Wars ...
Foucauld, Charles Eugene, vicomte de: French soldier, explorer, and ascetic who is best known for his life of study and prayer after 1905 in the Sahara Desert.
Foucault pendulum: relatively large mass suspended from a long line mounted so that its perpendicular plane of swing is not confined to a particular direction and, in fact, rotates in relation to the Earth's surface. In 1851 the French physicist Jean-Bernard-Leon Foucault ...
Foucault, Jean: French physicist who introduced and helped develop a technique of measuring the absolute velocity of light with extreme accuracy. He provided experimental proof that the Earth rotates on its axis.
Foucault, Michel: French philosopher and historian, one of the most influential and controversial scholars of the post-World War II period.
Fouche, Joseph, Duc D'otrante: French statesman and organizer of the police, whose efficiency and opportunism enabled him to serve every government from 1792 to 1815.
Foucher, Simon: ecclesiastic and critical philosopher of the Cartesian school, the first to publish criticisms of the philosophical theories of Nicolas Malebranche. In Critique de la recherche de la verite (1675; "Critique of the Search for Truth"), Foucher reasoned to contradictory conclusions ...
fouette en tournant: (French: "whipped turning"), spectacular turn in ballet, usually performed in series, during which the dancer turns on one foot while making fast outward and inward thrusts of the working leg at each revolution. After a preparatory turn in place on ...
Fougeres: industrial town and tourist centre, northwestern France, in Ille-et-Vilaine departement, Bretagne region, northeast of Rennes. Strikingly situated on a ridge dominating the winding valley of the Nancon River, the town, with its fortress, was of great military importance in medieval ...
Foula: one of the Shetland Islands, historic county of Shetland, Scotland, lying in the Atlantic Ocean 16 miles (26 km) southwest of the largest Shetland island, Mainland. Rocky and exposed, Foula has an area of 4 square miles (10 square km). ...
foulard: light silk fabric having a distinctive soft finish and a plain or simple twill weave. It is said to come originally from the Far East. In French the word foulard signifies a silk handkerchief.
Fould, Achille: influential French statesman during the Second Republic (1848-52) and the Second Empire (1852-70). He combined liberal economic ideas with political flexibility, tempered by a belief in the necessity of repressing radical leftist leaders.
Foulis, Robert: Scottish printer whose work had considerable influence on the bookmakers of his time.
Foumban: town, northwestern Cameroon, west-central Africa. It lies 140 miles (225 km) north-northwest of Yaounde. It was the historic capital of the Bamum (Mum) kingdom; a palace there dates from the 18th century. Njoya (1889-1933), the most famous of the Bamum ...
found poem: a poem consisting of words found in a nonpoetic context (such as a product label) and usually broken into lines that convey a verse rhythm. Both the term and the concept are modeled on the objet trouve (French: "found object"), ...
founding: the process of pouring molten metal into a cavity that has been molded according to a pattern of the desired shape. When the metal solidifies, the result is a casting-a metal object conforming to that shape. A great variety of ...
fountain: in landscape architecture, an issue of water controlled or contained primarily for purposes of decoration, especially an artificially produced jet of water or the structure from which it rises.
Fouque, Friedrich Heinrich Karl de La Motte, Baron: German novelist and playwright remembered chiefly as the author of the popular fairy tale Undine (1811).
Fouquet, Jean: preeminent French painter of the 15th century.
Fouquet, Nicolas: French finance minister in the early years of the reign of Louis XIV, the last surintendant (as opposed to controleur general), whose career ended with his conviction for embezzlement.
Fouquier-Tinville, Antoine-Quentin: French Revolutionary lawyer who was public prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal during the Reign of Terror.
Four Freedoms: a formulation of worldwide social and political objectives by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the State of the Union message he delivered to Congress on Jan. 6, 1941. Roosevelt stated these freedoms to be the freedom of speech and ...
Four Horsemen: name given by the sportswriter Grantland Rice to the backfield of the University of Notre Dame's undefeated gridiron football team of 1924: Harry Stuhldreher (quarterback), Don Miller and Jim Crowley (halfbacks), and Elmer Layden (fullback). Supported by the Seven Mules ...
Four Masters of Anhui: group of Chinese artists who were born and worked in Anhui province in the 17th century (Qing dynasty) and who, being somewhat remote from the traditional centres of Chinese painting, developed rather unusual styles. The "four masters" are generally identified ...
Four Masters of the Yuan dynasty: Chinese painters who worked during the Yuan period (1206-1368) and were revered during the Ming dynasty and later periods as major exponents of the tradition of "literati painting" (wenrenhua), which was concerned more with individual expression and ...
Four Noble Truths: the essence of Buddhist religious doctrine, expounded by Gautama Buddha in his first sermon at the deer park near Benares (Varanasi), India, shortly after his having attained Enlightenment. The four truths are: (1) that existence is suffering (dukkha); (2) that ...
Four Seasons, the: American rock-and-roll group that was among the best-selling recording artists of the early and mid-1960s. Best remembered for lead singer Frankie Valli's soaring falsetto, the Four Seasons had a string of more than 25 hits over a five-year period that ...
Four Tops, the: American vocal group that was one of Motown's most popular acts in the 1960s. The members were Renaldo ("Obie") Benson (b. June 14, 1936, Detroit, Michigan, U.S., -d. July 1, 2005, Detroit, ), Abdul ("Duke") Fakir (b. December 26, 1935, ...
Four Wangs: Chinese landscape painters (Wang Shimin, Wang Jian, Wang Hui, Wang Yuanqi) who were members of the group known as the Six Masters of the early Qing period.
four-colour map problem: problem in topology, originally posed in the early 1850s and not solved until 1976, that required finding the minimum number of different colours required to colour a map such that no two adjacent regions (i.e., with a common boundary segment) ...
four-eyed fish: either of two species of tropical American river fishes of the genus Anableps (family Anablepidae, order Atheriniformes). Four-eyed fishes are surface dwellers and have eyes adapted for seeing both above and below the water surface. The eyes are on top ...
four-o'clock: ornamental perennial plant, of the family Nyctaginaceae, native to tropical America. Four-o'clock is a quick-growing species up to one metre (three feet) tall, with oval leaves on short leafstalks. The stems are swollen at the joints. The plant is called ...
Fourdrinier machine: device for producing paper, paperboard, and other fibreboards, consisting of a moving endless belt of wire or plastic screen that receives a mixture of pulp and water and allows excess water to drain off, forming a continuous sheet for further ...
Fourier transform: in mathematics, a particular integral transform. As a transform of an integrable complex-valued function f of one real variable, it is the complex-valued function f ˆ of a real variable defined by the following equation
Fourier, Charles: French social theorist who advocated a reconstruction of society based on communal associations of producers known as phalanges (phalanxes). His system came to be known as Fourierism.
Fourier, Joseph, Baron: French mathematician, known also as an Egyptologist and administrator, who exerted strong influence on mathematical physics through his Theorie analytique de la chaleur (1822; The Analytical Theory of Heat). He showed how the conduction of heat in solid bodies may ...
Fourierism: philosophy of social reform developed by the French social theorist Charles Fourier that advocated the transformation of society into self-sufficient, independent "phalanges" (phalanxes). One of several utopian socialist programs to emerge in the second quarter of the 19th century, Fourierism ...
Fourneyron, Benoit: French inventor of the water turbine.
Fournier, Pierre-Simon: French engraver and typefounder particularly noted for decorative typographic ornaments reflecting the Rococo spirit of his day.
Fourteen Points: (Jan. 8, 1918), declaration by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson during World War I outlining his proposals for a postwar peace settlement.
fourteener: a poetic line of 14 syllables; especially, such a line consisting of seven iambic feet. The form is also called a heptameter or septenary. It was used in Greek and Latin prosody and flourished in Elizabethan English narrative verse but ...