Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Gehenna ... Gemma Augustea

Gehenna: abode of the damned in the afterlife in Jewish and Christian eschatology (the doctrine of last things). Named in the New Testament in Greek form (from the Hebrew Ge Hinnom, meaning "valley of Hinnom"), Gehenna originally was a valley west ...
gehlenite: mineral composed of calcium aluminum silicate, Ca₂Al₂SiO₇, one end-member of the melilite mineral series (see melilite).
Gehrig, Lou: one of the most durable players in American professional baseball and one of its great hitters. From June 1, 1925, to May 2, 1939, Gehrig, playing first base for the New York Yankees, appeared in 2,130 consecutive games, a record ...
Gehry, Frank O.: American architect and designer whose original, sculptural, often audacious work won him worldwide renown.
Geibel, Emanuel von: German poet and dramatist who was the centre of a circle of literary figures drawn together in Munich by Maximilian II of Bavaria. This group belonged to the Gesellschaft der Krokodile ("Society of the Crocodiles"), a literary society that cultivated ...
Geiger counter: type of ionization chamber (q.v.) especially effective for counting individual particles of radiation.
Geiger, Abraham: German-Jewish theologian, author, and the outstanding leader in the early development of Reform Judaism.
Geiger, Hans: German physicist who introduced the first successful detector (the Geiger counter) of individual alpha particles and other ionizing radiations.
Geiger, Rudolf Oskar Robert Williams: German meteorologist, one of the founders of microclimatology, the study of the climatic conditions within a few metres of the ground surface. His observations, made above grassy fields or areas of crops and below forest canopies, elucidated the complex and ...
Geiger, Theodor Julius: German sociologist and first professor of sociology in Denmark, whose most important studies concerned social stratification and social mobility.
Geijer, Erik Gustaf: Swedish poet, historian, philosopher, and social and political theorist who was a leading advocate, successively, of the conservative and liberal points of view.
Geikie, Sir Archibald: British geologist who became the foremost advocate of the fluvial theories of erosion.
Geisel, Ernesto: army general who was president of Brazil from 1974 to 1979.
Geisel, Theodor Seuss: American writer and illustrator of immensely popular children's books.
geisha: a member of a professional class of women in Japan whose traditional occupation is to entertain men, in modern times, particularly at businessmen's parties in restaurants or teahouses. The Japanese word geisha literally means "art person," and singing, dancing, and ...
Geissler, Heinrich: German glassblower for whom the Geissler (mercury) pump and the Geissler tube are named.
gel: coherent mass consisting of a liquid in which particles too small to be seen in an ordinary optical microscope are either dispersed or arranged in a fine network throughout the mass. A gel may be notably elastic and jellylike (as ...
gel chromatography: in analytical chemistry, technique for separating chemical substances by exploiting the differences in the rates at which they pass through a bed of a porous, semisolid substance. The method is especially useful for separating enzymes, proteins, peptides, and amino acids ...
Gela: town, southern Sicily, Italy, on the Gulf of Gela (of the Mediterranean Sea) with a fertile plain (ancient Campi Geloi) to the north. It was founded by Cretan and Rhodian colonists in about 688 BC and sent forth colonists to ...
gelada: large baboonlike monkey that differs from true baboons in having the nostrils some distance from the tip of the muzzle. The gelada inhabits the mountains of Ethiopia and lives in groups among steep cliffs and high plateaus. Terrestrial and active ...
Gelasius I, Saint: pope from 492 to 496.
Gelasius II: original name Giovanni Da Gaetan, English John Of Gaeta pope from 1118 to 1119.
gelatin: animal protein substance having gel-forming properties, used primarily in food products and home cookery, also having various industrial uses. Derived from collagen, a protein found in animal skin and bone, it is extracted by boiling animal hides, skins, bones, and ...
gelatin process: photographic process in which gelatin is used as the dispersing vehicle for the light-sensitive silver salts. The process, introduced in about 1880, superseded the wet collodion process, in which a wet negative was produced from a nitrocellulose (collodion) solution applied ...
Gelber, Jack: American playwright known for The Connection (performed 1959, published 1960), and for his association with the Living Theatre, an innovative, experimental theatre group.
Gelder, Aert de: the only Dutch artist of the late 17th and early 18th century to paint in the tradition of Rembrandt's late style.
Gelderland: provincie, eastern and central Netherlands; it occupies an area (1,935 square miles [5,011 square km]) extending from the German border westward to the narrow Lake Veluwe (separating Gelderland from several polders of Flevoland province) between the provinces of Overijssel (north) ...
gelechiid moth: any member of the large, cosmopolitan insect family Gelechiidae (order Lepidoptera), containing more than 3,700 described species of moths, including several important pests. The brown adults have gray or silver markings and average 19 mm (34 inch) in wingspan. The ...
Gelfond, Aleksandr Osipovich: Russian mathematician who originated basic techniques in the study of transcendental numbers (numbers that cannot be expressed as the root or solution of an algebraic equation with rational coefficients). He profoundly advanced transcendental number theory and the theory of interpolation ...
Gelimer: last Vandal king (ruled 530-534) of the area called by the Romans "Africa" (roughly, modern Tunisia).
Gelisol: one of the 12 soil orders of the U.S. Soil Taxonomy. Gelisols are perennially frozen soils of the Arctic and Antarctic regions, but they are also found at extremely high elevations in the lower latitudes. They are fragile, easily eroded ...
Gell-Mann, Murray: American physicist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics for 1969 for his work pertaining to the classification of subatomic particles and their interactions.
Gellert: in Welsh tradition, the trusted hound of Prince Llewellyn the Great of Wales. Having been left to guard his master's infant son, Gellert killed a wolf that attempted to attack the child. Llewellyn, returning home to find the baby missing ...
Gellert, Christian Furchtegott: poet and novelist, a prominent representative of the German Enlightenment whose works were, for a time, second in popularity only to the Bible.
Gelligaer: community formerly known for mining, Caerphilly county borough, historic county of Glamorgan (Morgannwg), Wales, lying in the middle of the River Rhymney valley. Old Gelligaer village is located on the site of a Roman fort, on the ridge-top road northward ...
Gellius, Aulus: Latin author remembered for his miscellany Noctes Atticae ("Attic Nights"), in which many fragments of lost works are preserved. Written in Athens to beguile the winter evenings, the work is an interesting source on the state of knowledge and scholarship ...
Gelmirez, Diego: Spanish bishop and archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, site of the supposed shrine of St. James, which he developed as a place of pilgrimage.
Gelon: tyrant of the cities of Gela (491-485) and Syracuse (485-478) in Sicily.
Gelosi, Compagnia dei: (Italian: "Company of Jealous Ones"), one of the earliest and most famous of the commedia dell'arte companies of 16th-century Italy. The name was derived from the troupe's motto, Virtu, fama ed honor ne fer gelosi ("We are jealous of attaining ...
Gelsenkirchen: city, North Rhine-Westphalia Land (state), western Germany. It lies just north of Essen. Gelsenkirchen was a village of fewer than 1,000 inhabitants in 1850, but the opening in 1853 of its first coal mine and its favourable ...
Geltzer, Yekaterina Vasilyevna: prima ballerina of the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre who, during the period of disorder following the Revolution of 1917, helped preserve and pass on the classical technique and repertory of the Imperial Russian Ballet.
Gemara: a rabbinic commentary on and interpretation of the collection of Jewish law known as the Mishna. See Talmud.
gematria: the substitution of numbers for letters of the Hebrew alphabet, a favourite method of exegesis used by medieval Kabbalists to derive mystical insights into sacred writings or obtain new interpretations of the texts. Some condemned its use as mere toying ...
Gemayel Family: Maronite Christian family prominent in Lebanese politics before and after the start of that country's civil war in 1975.
Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft: ideal types of social organizations that were systematically elaborated by German sociologist Ferdinand Tonnies in his influential work Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887; Community and Society).
gemilut hesed: ("bestowing kindnesses"), in Judaism, an attribute of God said to be imitated by those who in any of countless ways show personal kindness toward others. A Jew who does not manifest sensitive concern for others is considered no better than ...
Gemini: (Latin: "Twins"), in astronomy, zodiacal constellation lying between Cancer and Taurus, at about 7 hours right ascension (the coordinate of the celestial sphere analogous to longitude on the Earth) and 22° north declination (angular distance north of the celestial equator). ...
Gemini: any of a series of 12 two-man spacecraft launched into orbit around the Earth by the United States between 1964 and 1967. The Gemini (Latin: "Twins") program was preceded by the Mercury series of one-man spacecraft and was followed by ...
Geminiani, Francesco: Italian composer, violinist, writer on musical performance, and a leading figure in early 18th-century music.
Gemistus Plethon, George: Byzantine philosopher and humanist scholar whose clarification of the distinction between Platonic and Aristotelian thought proved to be a seminal influence in determining the philosophic orientation of the Italian Renaissance.
Gemma Augustea: sardonyx cameo depicting the apotheosis of Augustus. He is seated next to the goddess Roma, and both are trampling the armour of defeated enemies. It is one of the most impressive carved cameos of a series of Roman gems representing ...