Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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inertial guidance system ... Inhambane

inertial guidance system: electronic system that continuously monitors the position, velocity, and acceleration of a vehicle, usually a submarine, missile, or airplane, and thus provides navigational data or control without need for communicating with a base station.
infamy: public disgrace or loss of reputation, particularly as a consequence of criminal conviction. In early common law, conviction for an infamous crime resulted in disqualification to testify as a witness. The criterion for considering a crime infamous was whether or ...
infancy: among humans, the period of life between birth and the acquisition of language approximately one to two years later.
infante: the title borne from the 13th century by the children of the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs. The title infante was borne by the sons of the sovereign, and the title infanta was given to the daughters and to the wife ...
infanticide: the killing of the newborn. It has often been interpreted as a primitive method of birth control and a means of ridding a group of its weak and deformed children; but most societies actively desire children and put them to ...
infantile cortical hyperostosis: a disease of infants, characterized by swellings of the periosteum (the bone layer where new bone is produced) and cortex of bones of the upper arms, shoulder girdle, and lower jaw. It is accompanied by fever and irritability; after a ...
infantry: troops who fight on foot, even though transported to the battlefield by horses, ships, aircraft, tanks and other motorized vehicles, skis, or other means. The term applies equally to troops armed with such hand weapons as the spear and sword ...
infarction: death of a section of tissue when blood supply to the section fails as the result of obstruction of a blood vessel. The obstruction may be due to a blood clot or may result from narrowing of the blood vessel ...
infectious disease: in medicine, a process caused by a microorganism that impairs a person's health. An infection, by contrast, is the invasion of and replication in the body by any of various microbial agents-including bacteria, viruses, fungi, protozoans, and worms-as well as ...
inference: in statistics, the process of drawing conclusions about a parameter one is seeking to measure or estimate. Often scientists have many measurements of an object-say, the mass of an electron-and wish to choose the best measure. One principal approach of ...
inference: in logic, derivation of conclusions from given information or premises by any acceptable form of reasoning. Inferences are commonly drawn (1) by deduction, which, by analyzing valid argument forms, draws out the conclusions implicit in their premises, (2) by induction, ...
inferiority complex: a psychological sense of inferiority that is wholly or partly unconscious. The term has been used by some psychiatrists and psychologists, particularly the followers of the early psychoanalyst Alfred Adler, who held that many neurotic symptoms could be traced to ...
infinite series: the sum of infinitely many numbers related in a given way and listed in a given order. Infinite series are useful in mathematics and in such disciplines as physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering.
infinitesimal: in mathematics, quantity less than any finite quantity, yet not zero. Even though no such quantity can exist in the real number system, many early attempts at the calculus were based on sometimes dubious reasoning about infinitesimals: derivatives were defined ...
infinity: the concept of something that is unlimited, endless, without bound. The common symbol for infinity, ∞, was invented by the English mathematician John Wallis in 1657. Three main types of infinity may be distinguished: the mathematical, the physical, and the ...
inflammation: a response triggered by damage to living tissues. The inflammatory response is a defense mechanism that evolved in higher organisms to protect them from infection and injury. Its purpose is to localize and eliminate the injurious agent and to remove ...
inflation: in economics, collective increases in the supply of money, in money incomes, or in prices. Inflation is generally thought of as an inordinate rise in the general level of prices.
inflection: in linguistics, the change in the form of a word (in English, usually the addition of endings) to mark such distinctions as tense, person, number, gender, mood, voice, and case. English inflection indicates noun plural (cat, cats), third person singular ...
inflorescence: in a flowering plant, a cluster of flowers on a branch or a system of branches. An inflorescence is categorized on the basis of the arrangement of flowers on a main axis (peduncle) and by the timing of its flowering ...
influence, sphere of: in international politics, the claim by a state to exclusive or predominant control over a foreign area or territory. The term may refer to a political claim to exclusive control, which other nations may or may not recognize as a ...
influenza: an acute viral infection of the upper or lower respiratory tract that is marked by fever, chills, and a generalized feeling of weakness and pain in the muscles, together with varying degrees of soreness in the head and abdomen.
influenza epidemic of 1918-19: the most severe influenza outbreak of the 20th century and, in terms of total numbers of deaths, among the most devastating epidemics in human history.
information processing: the acquisition, recording, organization, retrieval, display, and dissemination of information. In recent years, the term has often been applied to computer-based operations specifically.
information science: discipline that deals with the processes of storing and transferring information. It attempts to bring together concepts and methods from various disciplines such as library science, computer science and engineering, linguistics, psychology, and other technologies in order to develop techniques ...
information system: an integrated set of components for collecting, storing, processing, and communicating information. Business firms, other organizations, and individuals in contemporary society rely on information systems to manage their operations, compete in the marketplace, supply services, and augment personal lives. For ...
information theory: a mathematical representation of the conditions and parameters affecting the transmission and processing of information. Most closely associated with the work of the American electrical engineer Claude Elwood Shannon in the mid-20th century, information theory is chiefly of interest to ...
infrared astronomy: study of astronomical objects through observations of the infrared radiation that they emit. Various types of celestial objects-including the planets of the solar system, stars, nebulae, and galaxies-give off energy at wavelengths in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum ...
infrared radiation: that portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that extends from the long wavelength, or red, end of the visible-light range to the microwave range. Invisible to the eye, it can be detected as a sensation of warmth on the skin. The ...
infrared source: in astronomy, any of various celestial objects that radiate measurable quantities of energy in the infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Such objects include the Sun and the planets, certain stars, nebulae, and galaxies. A number of known infrared sources ...
infrasonics: vibrational or stress waves in elastic media, having a frequency below those of sound waves that can be detected by the human ear-i.e., below 20 hertz. The range of frequencies extends down to geologic vibrations that complete one cycle in ...
Inga Falls: rapids on the lower Congo River and site of one of the world's largest hydroelectric-dam projects, in western Congo (Kinshasa), about 25 miles (40 km) above the port of Matadi. At a sharp bend in the river between Sikila Island ...
Ingalik: Athabascan-speaking Indian tribe of interior Alaska, in the basins of the upper Kuskokwim and lower Yukon rivers. Their region is mountainous, with both woodlands and tundra, and is fairly rich in fish, caribou, bear, moose, and other game on which ...
Inge I Haraldsson: king of Norway (1136-61), who maintained his claim to the throne against the illegitimate sons of his father, the Norwegian king Harald IV Gille (reigned 1130-36), and represented the interests of the higher nobles and clergy in the second part ...
Inge, William: American playwright best known for his plays Come Back, Little Sheba (1950; filmed 1952); Picnic (1953; filmed 1956), for which he won a Pulitzer Prize; and Bus Stop (1955; filmed 1956).
Inge, William Ralph: British divine, Christian Platonist, and dean of St. Paul's Cathedral, London. He was noted for his keen intellect and for his pessimistic views, which earned him the title "gloomy dean."
Ingemann, Bernhard Severin: historical novelist and poet whose works glorifying Denmark's medieval past were popular for generations. Most of Ingemann's many works have not won enduring acclaim, but his simple morning and evening songs (1837-38) are much admired in Denmark. The title of ...
Ingenhousz, Jan: Dutch-born British physician and scientist who is best known for his discovery of the process of photosynthesis, by which green plants in sunlight absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen.
Ingersoll, Robert G: American politician and orator known as "the great agnostic" who popularized the higher criticism of the Bible, as well as a humanistic philosophy and a scientific rationalism.
Ingham: town, northeastern Queensland, Australia, 19 miles (31 km) upstream from the mouth of the Herbert River. Founded in 1864, it was gazetted a shire in 1879. On a rail line and the Bruce Highway from Brisbane (745 miles [1,199 km] ...
inglenook: wooden seat or settle built into the space on either side of the wide fireplaces common in 17th-century English houses and cottages. The word is of Scottish origin, "ingle" meaning a housefire burning on a hearth. This type of built-in ...
Inglewood: city, Los Angeles county, California, U.S. It lies southwest of downtown Los Angeles. Settled in 1873 by Daniel Freeman, who named the city for his hometown in Canada, it was laid out by the Centinela-Inglewood Land Company in 1887 and ...
Inglis, Charles: Canadian clergyman and educator who became the first Anglican bishop of Nova Scotia.
Ingolstadt: city, Bavaria Land (state), southern Germany. It lies along the Danube and Schutter rivers, southwest of Regensburg. First mentioned in 806 as a crown estate, villa Ingoldestat, it was chartered in 1250 and became a ducal seat ...
ingot: mass of metal cast into a size and shape such as a bar, plate, or sheet convenient to store, transport, and work into a semifinished or finished product; it also refers to a mold in which metal is so cast. ...
Ingraham, Hubert: Bahamian political leader who became prime minister in 1992.
Ingram, John Kells: Irish economic historian who also achieved fame as a scholar and poet.
Ingres, J.-A.-D: painter and icon of cultural conservatism in 19th-century France. Ingres became the principal proponent of French Neoclassical painting after the death of his mentor, Jacques-Louis David. His cool, meticulously drawn works constituted the stylistic antithesis of the emotionalism and colourism ...
ingress: in astronomy, the apparent entrance of a smaller body upon the disk of a larger one as the smaller passes between the larger and the observer-e.g., the entrance of a satellite or its shadow on the disk of a planet. ...
Inguri Dam: world's highest arch dam (completed 1980), located on the Inguri River in western Georgia near the point at which the river leaves the Caucasus Mountains on its way to the Black Sea. It is a huge 892-foot- (272-metre-) tall double-curvature ...
Ingushetia: republic in southwestern Russia. The crest line of the Greater Caucasus range forms its southern boundary with Georgia; the Russian republic of Chechnya lies to the east, and that of North Ossetia-Alania (formerly North Ossetia) to the west and north. ...
Inhambane: town, southeastern Mozambique. The town is a commercial seaport on Inhambane Bay, an inlet of the Mozambique Channel (Indian Ocean). It is a market centre, and industry consists mainly in the processing of cashew nuts.