Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Indochina wars ... inertial force

Indochina wars: 20th-century conflicts in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, with the principal involvement of France (1946-54) and later the United States (beginning in the 1950s). The wars are often called the French Indochina War and the Vietnam War (q.v.), or the First ...
indole: a heterocyclic organic compound occurring in some flower oils, such as jasmine and orange blossom, in coal tar, and in fecal matter. It is used in perfumery and in making tryptophan, an essential amino acid, and indoleacetic acid (heteroauxin), a ...
Indonesia: country located off the coast of the Southeast Asian mainland in the Indian and Pacific oceans. It is an archipelago that lies across the Equator and spans a distance equivalent to one-eighth of the Earth's circumference. Its islands can be ...
Indonesia Botanical Gardens: tropical garden in Bogor, West Java, Indonesia. It is renowned for its research on regional flora.
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle: Indonesian political party formed in 1973 through the forced merger of five non-Islamic political parties. In the final three decades of the 20th century, it was one of two opposition parties officially recognized by the government, and though it often ...
Indonesian languages: broadly, the Austronesian languages of island Southeast Asia as a whole, including the languages of Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, and Taiwan, and the outlying areas of Madagascar and of Palau and the Mariana Islands of western Micronesia. A more ...
Indonesian literatures: the poetry and prose writings in Javanese, Malay, Sundanese, and other languages of the peoples of Indonesia. They include works orally transmitted and then preserved in written form by the Indonesian peoples, oral literature recorded by Western anthropologists and ethnologists, ...
Indore: city, western Madhya Pradesh state, central India. The city is a major trunk road and rail junction and is located on the Saraswati and Khan streams, which are tributaries of the Sipra River.
Indra: chief of the Vedic gods of India. A warlike, typically Aryan god, he conquered innumerable human and demon enemies, vanquished the sun, and killed the dragon Vrtra, who had prevented the monsoon from breaking.
Indravarman I: ruler of the Khmer kingdom of Angkor (Cambodia) from 877 to about 890.
Indre River: river, west-central France, a left-bank tributary of the Loire River. Rising on the northern flanks of the Massif Central, it flows 165 miles (265 km) northwestward through Indre and Indre-et-Loire departements, joining the Loire northwest of Chinon and draining a ...
indri: slender, long-limbed primate found in the forests of Madagascar. The largest of the lemurs, it is 60-70 cm (24-28 inches) long, with a rudimentary tail and large hands and feet. The round head has a pointed face and round, furry ...
Indricotherium: genus of giant browsing perissodactyls found as fossils in Asian deposits of the Late Oligocene and Early Miocene epochs (30 to 16.6 million years ago). The indricotherium, which was related to the modern rhinoceros but was hornless, was the largest ...
Indriidae: family of arboreal Madagascan primates. See avahi; indri; sifaka.
indriya: (Sanskrit: "faculty"), according to Indian philosophy, the instruments of a person's direct perception of the outside world. They are of two kinds, motoric and sensory. The motoric faculties are those of speaking, grasping, walking, ejaculating, and evacuating. The sensory faculties, ...
Induan Stage: lowermost of two divisions of the Lower Triassic Series, representing those rocks deposited worldwide during Induan time (from 248 million to 245 million years ago) in the Triassic Period. The stage name is derived from the Indus River in the ...
inductance: property of a conductor (often in the shape of a coil) that is measured by the size of the electromotive force, or voltage, induced in it, compared with the rate of change of the electric current that produces the voltage. ...
induction: in enzymology, a metabolic control mechanism with the effect of increasing the rate of synthesis of an enzyme. In induction, synthesis of a specific enzyme, called an inducible enzyme (e.g., beta-galactosidase in Escherichia coli), occurs when cells are exposed to ...
induction: in embryology, process by which the presence of one tissue influences the development of others. Certain tissues, especially in very young embryos, apparently have the potential to direct the differentiation of adjacent cells. Absence of the inducing tissue results in ...
induction: in logic, method of reasoning from a part to a whole, from particulars to generals, or from the individual to the universal. As it applies to logic in systems of the 20th century, the term is obsolete. Traditionally, logicians distinguished ...
induction heating: method of raising the temperature of an electrically conductive material by subjecting it to an alternating electromagnetic field. The electric currents induced in the object (although it is electrically isolated from the source of the field) bring about dissipation of ...
induction, electromagnetic: in physics, the induction of an electromotive force in a circuit by varying the magnetic flux linked with the circuit. See Faraday's law of induction.
indulgence: a distinctive feature of the penitential system of both the Western medieval and the Roman Catholic church that granted full or partial remission of the punishment of sin. The granting of indulgences was predicated on two beliefs. First, in the ...
induration: hardening of rocks by heat or baking; also the hardening of sediments through cementation or compaction, or both, without the introduction of heat. The classic example is the rock called hornfels, which is formed at contacts with igneous intrusions and ...
Indus civilization: the earliest known urban culture of the Indian subcontinent, first identified in 1921 at Harappa in the Punjab and then in 1922 at Mohenjo-daro, near the Indus River in the Sindh, now both in Pakistan. Subsequently, vestiges of the civilization ...
Indus River: great trans-Himalayan river of South Asia and one of the longest rivers in the world, having a length of 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometres). It has a total drainage area of about 450,000 square miles (1,165,500 square kilometres), of which 175,000 ...
Industrial Bank of Japan: former Japanese commercial bank that operated a general-banking and foreign-exchange business with branches in Japan and overseas. Established in 1902, the bank had specialized in medium- and long-term financing of industrial development, and both its main office and its foreign ...
industrial ceramics: Ceramics are broadly defined as inorganic, nonmetallic materials that exhibit such useful properties as high strength and hardness, high melting temperatures, chemical inertness, and low thermal and electrical conductivity but that also display brittleness and sensitivity to flaws. As practical ...
industrial design: design of products made by large-scale industry for mass distribution. Designing such products means, first, planning their structure, operation, and appearance and then planning these to fit efficient production, distribution, and selling procedures. Clearly, appearance is but one factor in ...
industrial diamond: any diamond that is designated for industrial use, principally as a cutting tool or abrasive. In general, industrial diamonds are too badly flawed, irregularly shaped, poorly coloured, or small to be of value as gems, but they are of vital ...
industrial engineering: application of engineering principles and techniques of scientific management to the maintenance of a high level of productivity at optimum cost in industrial enterprises.
industrial espionage: acquisition of trade secrets from business competitors. A by-product of the technological revolution, industrial espionage is a reaction to the efforts of many businessmen to keep secret their designs, formulas, manufacturing processes, research, and future plans in order to protect ...
industrial glass: solid material that is normally lustrous and transparent in appearance and that shows great durability under exposure to the natural elements. These three properties-lustre, transparency, and durability-make glass a favoured material for such household objects as windowpanes, bottles, and lightbulbs. ...
industrial medicine: the branch of medicine concerned with the maintenance of health and the prevention and treatment of diseases and accidental injuries in working populations in the workplace.
industrial melanism: the darkness-of the skin, feathers, or fur-acquired by a population of animals living in an industrial region where the environment is soot-darkened. The melanization of a population increases the probability that its members will survive and reproduce; it takes place ...
industrial music: dissonant electronic music that arose in the late 1970s in response to punk rock. Coined by British postpunk experimentalists Throbbing Gristle, the term industrial simultaneously evoked the genre's bleak, dystopian worldview and its harsh, assaultive sound ("muzak ...
industrial polymers, chemistry of: structure and composition of chemical compounds made up of long, chainlike molecules.
industrial polymers, major: chemical compounds used in the manufacture of synthetic industrial materials.
industrial psychology: application of the concepts and methods of experimental, clinical, and social psychology to industry. The primary concern of industrial psychology is with the basic relations in industry between worker and machine and the organization.
industrial relations: the behaviour of workers in organizations in which they earn their living.
Industrial Revolution: in modern history, the process of change from an agrarian, handicraft economy to one dominated by industry and machine manufacture. This process began in England in the 18th century and from there spread to other parts of the world. Although ...
industrial truck: carrier designed to transport materials within a factory area with maximum flexibility in making moves. Most industrial trucks permit mechanized pickup and deposit of the loads, eliminating manual work in lifting as well as transporting. Depending on their means of ...
industrial union: trade union that combines all workers, both skilled and unskilled, who are employed in a particular industry. At the heart of industrial unionism is the slogan "one shop, one union."
Industrial Workers of the World: labour organization founded in Chicago in 1905 by representatives of 43 groups. The IWW opposed the American Federation of Labor's acceptance of capitalism and its refusal to include unskilled workers in craft unions.
industrialization: the process of converting to a socioeconomic order in which industry is dominant.
industry: a group of productive enterprises or organizations that produce or supply goods, services, or sources of income. In economics, industries are customarily classified as primary, secondary, and tertiary; secondary industries are further classified as heavy and light.
Indy, Vincent d': French composer and teacher, remarkable for his attempted, and partially successful, reform of French symphonic and dramatic music along lines indicated by Cesar Franck.
Ine: also spelled Ini Anglo-Saxon king of the West Saxons, or Wessex, from 688 to 726. One of the most powerful West Saxon rulers before Alfred the Great, Ine was the first West Saxon king to issue a code of laws, ...
inertia: property of a body by virtue of which it opposes any agency that attempts to put it in motion or, if it is moving, to change the magnitude or direction of its velocity. Inertia is a passive property and does ...
inertia, moment of: in physics, quantitative measure of the rotational inertia of a body-i.e., the opposition that the body exhibits to having its speed of rotation about an axis altered by the application of a torque (turning force). The axis may be internal ...
inertial force: any force invoked by an observer to maintain the validity of Isaac Newton's second law of motion in a reference frame that is rotating or otherwise accelerating at a constant rate. For specific inertial forces, see centrifugal force; Coriolis force; ...