Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Ridgway ware ... Rigel

Ridgway ware: type of Staffordshire pottery first produced by the brothers Job and George Ridgway in 1792 at the Bell Works at Shelton, Hanley, North Staffordshire, Eng. Despite family tensions, the Ridgways continued to produce their high-quality earthenware with blue printed designs ...
Ridgway, Matthew Bunker: U.S. Army officer who planned and executed the first major airborne assault in U.S. military history with the attack on Sicily (July 1943).
Riding, Laura: nee Reichenthal, married name Jackson, pseudonyms Barbara Rich, Madeleine Vara, and Laura Riding Gottschalk American poet, critic, and prose writer who was influential among the literary avant-garde during the 1920s and '30s.
Ridler, Anne: English poet and dramatist noted for her devotional poetry and for verse drama that shows the influence of the later work of T.S. Eliot.
Ridley, Henry Nicholas: English botanist who was largely responsible for establishing the rubber industry in the Malay Peninsula.
Ridley, Nicholas: Protestant martyr, one of the finest academic minds in the early English Reformation.
Ridolfi, Roberto: also called Roberto Di Ridolfo Florentine conspirator who attempted in 1570-71 to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I of England in favour of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, who then was to be married to Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk. Ridolfi ...
Rie, Lucie, Dame: nee Gomperz Austrian-born British studio potter. Her unique and complex slip-glaze surface treatment and inventive kiln-processing influenced an entire generation of younger British ceramists.
riebeckite: a sodium-iron silicate mineral [Na₂Fe²⁺₃Fe³⁺₂Si₈O₂₂(OH)₂] in the amphibole family. It forms part of a solid-solution series that includes both magnesioriebeckite (formed when iron is replaced by magnesium) and glaucophane (formed when iron is replaced by magnesium and aluminum).
Riebeeck, Jan van: Dutch founder in 1652 of Cape Town, thus opening South Africa for white settlement.
Riecke's principle: in geology, statement that a mineral grain possesses a greater solubility under high stress than it does under low stress. According to this principle, stressed grains in a rock will dissolve more readily than will unstressed grains in the same ...
Ried: town, Bundesland (federal state) Oberosterreich, northern Austria, located west of Wels. It has a museum of folklore and a parish church (1721-33) with two 17th-century altars. The town is the market and administrative centre for the fertile Innviertel ("Inn District"). ...
Riedel thyroiditis: extremely rare form of chronic inflammation of the thyroid gland, in which the glandular tissues assume a densely fibrous structure, interfering with production of thyroid hormone and compressing the adjacent trachea and esophagus. The thyroid becomes enlarged, often asymmetrically, to ...
Riefenstahl, Leni: German motion-picture director, actress, producer, and photographer who is best known for her documentary films of the 1930s dramatizing the power and pageantry of the Nazi movement.
Rieger, Frantisek Ladislav: politician and leader of the more conservative Czech nationalists who was the principal spokesman for Bohemian autonomy within the Habsburg Empire.
Riegger, Wallingford: prolific U.S. composer of orchestral works, modern dance and film scores, and teaching pieces and choral arrangements.
Riehl, Wilhelm Heinrich: German journalist and historian whose early emphasis on social structures in historical development were influential in the rise of sociological history.
Riel, Louis: Canadian leader of the Metis (persons of both European, especially French, and Indian descent) in western Canada.
Riemann zeta function: function useful in number theory for investigating properties of prime numbers. Written as zeta(x), it was originally defined as the infinite series zeta(x) = 1 + 2^−x + 3^−x + 4^−x + ⋯.When x = 1, this series is called the ...
Riemann, Bernhard: German mathematician whose profound and novel approaches to the study of geometry laid the mathematical foundation for Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. He also made important contributions to the theory of functions, complex analysis, and number theory.
Riemann, Hugo: German musicologist whose works on music harmony are considered to have been the foundation of modern music theory.
Riemannian geometry: one of the non-Euclidean geometries that completely rejects the validity of Euclid's fifth postulate and modifies his second postulate. Simply stated, Euclid's fifth postulate is: through a point not on a given line there is only one line parallel to ...
Riemannian geometry: one of the non-Euclidean geometries, which completely reject the validity of Euclid's fifth postulate and modify his second postulate. Simply stated, Euclid's fifth postulate is: through a point not on a given line there is only one line parallel to ...
Riemenschneider, Tilman: master sculptor whose wood portrait carvings and statues made him one of the major artists of the late Gothic period in Germany; he was known as the leader of the Lower Franconia school.
Riesa: city, Saxony Land (state), eastern Germany. It lies along the Elbe River, northwest of Dresden. It originated around a Benedictine monastery founded in 1111. A convent was built there in 1170 and was secularized in 1542. The town hall was ...
Riesener, Jean-Henri: best-known cabinetmaker in France during the reign of Louis XVI.
Riesman, David: American sociologist and author most noted for The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character (with Reuel Denney and Nathan Glazer, 1950), a work dealing primarily with the social character of the urban middle class. ...
Riesz, Frigyes: Hungarian mathematician and pioneer of functional analysis, which has found important applications to mathematical physics.
Rieti: city, capital of Rieti provincia, Lazio (Latium) regione, central Italy, on the Velino River in the Abruzzi Apennines, just southeast of Terni. The ancient town was first settled by the Sabines and then became the Roman Reate. It belonged to ...
Rietveld, Gerrit Thomas: Dutch architect and furniture designer notable for his application of the tenets of the de Stijl movement. He was an apprentice in his father's cabinetmaking business from 1899 to 1906 and later studied architecture in Utrecht.
Rievaulx: ruined Cistercian abbey, Ryedale district, administrative county of North Yorkshire, historic county of Yorkshire, England. It lies in the seclusion of a deep valley to which it has given its name, in the North York Moors National Park. The monastery ...
Rif: mountain range of northern Morocco, extending from Tanger (Tangier) to the Moulouya River valley near the Moroccan-Algerian frontier. For the greater part of its 180-mile (290-kilometre) length, the range hugs the Mediterranean Sea, leaving only a few narrow coastal valleys ...
Rif: any of the Berber tribes occupying a part of northeastern Morocco known as the Rif, an Arabic word meaning "edge of cultivated area." The Rif are divided into 19 tribes: 5 in the west along the Mediterranean coast, 7 in ...
Rif War: (1919-26), war fought between the Spanish and the Moroccan Rif and Jibala tribes.
Rifa', Ar-: municipality in the state and emirate of Bahrain, on north-central Bahrain island, in the Persian Gulf. It is on the north rim of the island's central depression, site of the country's chief oil fields. The municipality is an agglomeration of ...
Rifa'iyah: fraternity of Muslim mystics (Sufis), known in the West as howling dervishes, found primarily in Egypt and Syria and in Turkey until outlawed in 1925. An offshoot of the Qadiriyah established in Basra, Iraq, by Ahmad ar-Rifa'i (d. 1187), the ...
Rifbjerg, Klaus: Danish poet, novelist, playwright, and editor.
Riffaterre, Michael: American literary critic, whose textual analyses emphasize the responses of the reader and not the biography and politics of the author.
rifle: firearm with a rifled bore-i.e., having shallow spiral grooves cut inside the barrel to impart a spin to the projectile. The name, most often applied to a weapon fired from the shoulder, may also denote a rifled cannon; but though ...
riflebird: any of certain bird-of-paradise (q.v.) species.
rifleman: a New Zealand wren of the family Xenicidae (q.v.).
Rift Valley: major branch of the East African Rift System (q.v.).
rift valley: any elongated trough formed by the subsidence of a segment of the Earth's crust between dip-slip, or normal, faults. Such a fault is a fracture in the terrestrial surface in which the rock material on the upper side of the ...
Rift Valley fever: viral infection of animals that is transmissible to humans and causes a febrile illness of short duration. Headache, intolerance to light (photophobia), muscle pain, loss of appetite, and prostration are common symptoms. The virus is borne by mosquitoes and spread ...
Riga: city and capital of Latvia, on both banks of the Western Dvina River, 9 miles (15 km) above its mouth on the Gulf of Riga. An ancient settlement of the Livs where the Ridzene River joins the Western Dvina, Riga ...
Riga, Gulf of: large gulf of the Baltic Sea, bounded by the northern coast of Latvia and the western coast of Estonia, about 7,000 sq mi (18,000 sq km) in area. The gulf is separated from the Baltic Sea proper by Estonia's Muhu ...
Rigaud, Hyacinthe: one of the most prolific and successful French portrait painters of the Baroque period. He was trained at Montpellier before moving to Lyon and finally to Paris in 1681, where he devoted himself to portraiture. By 1688, when he received ...
rigaudon: sprightly 17th-century French folk dance for couples. Its hopping steps were adopted by the skillful dancers of the French and English courts, where it remained fashionable through the 18th century. Conjecture assigns its origins to Provencal sailors and its name ...
Rigault de Genouilly, Charles: admiral who initiated the French invasion of Vietnam in 1858 and the subsequent conquest of Cochinchina, now southern Vietnam.
Rigdon, Sidney: American churchman, an early convert to Mormonism (1830) and first counselor to its founder, Joseph Smith.
Rigel: one of the brightest stars in the sky, intrinsically as well as in appearance. A blue-white supergiant in the constellation Orion, Rigel is probably about 600 light-years from the Sun and is about 25,000 times as luminous. A companion star, ...