Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

0-9

lattice energy ... Laurens, Henri

lattice energy: amount of energy released when gaseous ions are brought together from infinite separation to form a crystal. For each particular solid, the lattice energy is a constant that measures how tightly the constituent particles are held together. The lattice energy ...
Lattimore, Owen: American sinologist, a victim of McCarthyism in the 1950s.
Lattimore, Richmond: American poet and translator renowned for his disciplined yet poetic translations of Greek classics.
Lattre de Tassigny, Jean de: French army officer and posthumous marshal of France who became one of the leading military figures in the French forces under General Charles de Gaulle during World War II. He was also the most successful French commander of the First ...
Latvia: country of northeastern Europe, one of the Baltic states. It lies along the shores of the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Riga and borders Estonia in the north, Russia in the east, and Lithuania in the south. The capital ...
Latvian language: East Baltic language spoken primarily in Latvia, where it has been the official language since 1918. It belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. (See Baltic languages.) In the late 20th century Latvian was spoken by ...
Latvian literature: body of writings in the Latvian language. Latvia's loss of political independence in the 13th century prevented a natural evolution of its literature out of folk poetry. Much of Latvian literature is an attempt to reestablish this connection. Written literature ...
Latynina, Larisa Semyonovna: Soviet gymnast who was the first woman athlete to win nine Olympic gold medals.
Lau Group: island cluster of Fiji in the South Pacific Ocean, east of the Koro Sea. Mainly composed of limestone, the 57 islands and islets cover a land area of 188 square miles (487 square km) and are scattered over 44,000 square ...
Laud, William: archbishop of Canterbury (1633-45) and religious adviser to King Charles I of Great Britain. His persecution of Puritans and other religious dissidents resulted in his trial and execution by the House of Commons.
lauda: a type of Italian poetry or a nonliturgical devotional song in praise of the Virgin Mary, Christ, or the saints.
Lauder, Estee: American cofounder of a large fragrance and cosmetics company.
Lauder, Sir Harry: Scottish music-hall comedian who excited enthusiasm throughout the English-speaking world as singer and composer of simplehearted Scottish songs.
Lauder, William: Scottish literary forger, known for his fraudulent attempt to prove Milton a plagiarist.
Lauderdale, James Maitland, 8th earl of: Baron Lauderdale Of Thirlestane Scottish politician and economic writer.
Lauderdale, John Maitland, duke of: one of the chief ministers of King Charles II of England (reigned 1660-85); he earned notoriety for his repressive rule in Scotland during Charles II's reign.
Laudon, Gideon Ernest, Freiherr von: Austrian field marshal who was one of the most successful Habsburg commanders during the Seven Years' War (1756-63) and the Austro-Turkish War of 1787-91.
Laue diffraction pattern: in X rays, a regular array of spots on a photographic emulsion resulting from X rays scattered by certain groups of parallel atomic planes within a crystal. When a thin, pencil-like beam of X rays is allowed to impinge on ...
Laue, Max von: German recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1914 for his discovery of the diffraction of X rays in crystals. This enabled scientists to study the structure of crystals and hence marked the origin of solid-state physics, an important ...
Lauenburg: former duchy of northern Germany, stretching from south of Lubeck to the Elbe and bounded on the west and east, respectively, by the former duchies of Holstein and Mecklenburg, an area that since 1946 has been part of the federal ...
Laufer, Berthold: U.S. scholar who, for 35 years, was virtually the only sinologist working in the United States.
Laugerud Garcia, Kjell Eugenio: president of Guatemala (1974-78), minister of defense and chief of the armed forces (1970-74).
laughing dove: (Streptopelia senegalensis), bird of the pigeon family, Columbidae (order Columbiformes), a native of African and southwest Asian scrublands that has been successfully introduced into Australia. The reddish-brown bird has blue markings on its wings, a white edge on its long ...
laughing gull: common name for the bird species Larus atricilla. See gull.
laughing hyena: African species of hyena (q.v.).
laughing owl: an extinct bird of the family Strigidae (order Strigiformes) that was native to New Zealand. It was last seen in the early 1900s. Laughing owls nested on the ground, where they fell prey to cats, rats, goats, and weasels. About ...
laughing thrush: any of the 45 species of the Asian genus Garrulax, large, strong-billed, sometimes strikingly patterned song-babblers, family Timaliidae. The name laughing thrush is sometimes used for the song-babbler (q.v.) group generally. These shy birds of forests form sizable flocks and ...
Laughlin, James: American publisher and poet, founder of the New Directions press.
Laughlin, Robert B.: American physicist who, with Daniel C. Tsui and Horst Stormer, received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1998 for the discovery that electrons in an extremely powerful magnetic field can form a quantum fluid in which "portions" of electrons can ...
Laughton, Charles: gifted British actor and director who defied the Hollywood typecasting system to emerge as one of most versatile performers of his generation.
lauma: in Baltic folklore, a fairy who appears as a beautiful naked maiden with long fair hair. Laumas dwell in the forest near water or stones. They yearn for children, but being unable to give birth, they often kidnap babies to ...
laumontite: common hydrated calcium and sodium aluminosilicate mineral in the zeolite family, formulated (Ca,Na₂)Al₂Si₄O₁₂·4H₂O. Its white to yellow or gray prismatic crystals typically occur filling veins and vesicles in igneous rocks. It is one of the more abundant zeolites present in ...
Launceston: chief city and port of northern Tasmania, Australia, lying where the North and South Esk rivers meet to form the River Tamar, a navigable tidal estuary that winds 40 miles (65 km) to Bass Strait. In 1804 Lieutenant Colonel William ...
Launceston: town ("parish"), North Cornwall district, administrative and historic county of Cornwall, England. Situated on the Devon county border, Launceston has sometimes been described as "the gateway to Cornwall." The keep of the Norman castle of Dunheved still dominates the town, ...
launch: largest of a ship's boats, at one time sloop-rigged and often armed, such as those used in the Mediterranean Sea during the 18th and 19th centuries. Although present-day launches can travel under sail or by oar, most are power-driven. Because ...
launch vehicle: rocket system that boosts a spacecraft into Earth orbit or beyond the gravitational dominance of the Earth. A wide variety of launch vehicles have been used to lift payloads ranging from a few pounds to the giant Skylab and Soyuz ...
Laura: the beloved of the Italian poet Petrarch and the subject of his love lyrics, written over a period of about 20 years, most of which were included in his Canzoniere, or Rime. Laura has traditionally been identified as Laura de ...
Laurales: order of dicotyledonous flowering plants, a division of the subclass Magnoliidae. The Laurales are characterized by woodiness, aromatic parts, and a single strand of conducting tissues continuing from the stem into the leaf. Lumber, medicinal extracts such as camphor, and ...
Laurana, Francesco: early Italian Renaissance sculptor and medallist, especially distinguished for his severely elegant portrait busts of women and as an early disseminator of the Renaissance style in France.
Laurana, Luciano: principal designer of the Palazzo Ducale at Urbino and one of the main figures in 15th-century Italian architecture.
Laurasia: hypothetical continental mass in the Northern Hemisphere that included North America, Europe, and Asia (except peninsular India). Its existence was proposed by Alexander Du Toit, a South African geologist, in "Our Wandering Continents" (1937), a reformulation of the continental drift ...
Laurel: city, Prince George's county, central Maryland, U.S., on the Patuxent River midway between Washington, D.C., and Baltimore. The land was patented to Richard Snowden, who arrived about 1658 and founded the community. Montpelier Mansion (1783; Georgian), built by Thomas Snowden, ...
Laurel: city, coseat (1906) with Ellisville of Jones county, southeastern Mississippi, U.S., on Tallahala Creek, about 30 miles (50 km) northeast of Hattiesburg. Founded in 1882 as a lumber camp, it was named for laurel shrubs, native to the surrounding forests. ...
laurel: any of several evergreen shrubs and small trees of the genus Laurus within the family Lauraceae; the name is chiefly applied to L. nobilis (also called bay, sweet bay, bay laurel, and bay tree), native to the Mediterranean region but ...
Laurel, Jose Paciano: president of the Philippines (1943-45), during the Japanese occupation of World War II.
Laurel, Stan; and Hardy, Oliver: comedy team that is widely regarded as the greatest in film history.
Lauren, Ralph: American fashion designer who, by developing his brand around the image of an elite, American lifestyle, built one of the world's most successful fashion empires.
Laurence, Margaret: nee Wemys Canadian writer whose novels portray strong women striving for self-realization while immersed in the daily struggle to make a living in a male-dominated world.
Laurencin, Marie: French painter, printmaker, and stage designer known for her delicate portraits of elegant, vaguely melancholic women.
Laurens: county, northern South Carolina, U.S. It is situated in a hilly piedmont region between the Saluda River to the southwest and the Enoree River to the northeast. The county is also drained by the Reedy River. Much of the land ...
Laurens, Henri: French sculptor known for his Cubist works and his later massive studies, particularly of the female figure. He also made collages, lithographs, and other works on paper.