Austrian-American composer who created a new method of composition based on a row, or series, of 12 tones-a method called atonality (q.v.). He was also one of the most influential teachers of the 20th century, among his most significant pupils ...
German-born American biochemist whose technique of "tagging" molecules with radioactive isotopes made it possible to trace the paths of organic substances through animals and plants and revolutionized metabolic studies.
American welfare worker and reformer who was influential in state and national child welfare and juvenile criminal legislation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
in Germany, a lay jurist or assessor assigned primarily to a lower criminal court to make decisions both on points of law and on fact jointly with professional jurists. A Schoffe may also sit on a higher court.
county, east-central New York state, U.S., comprising a mountainous region. The principal streams are Schoharie, Cobleskill, and Catskill creeks and West and Manor kills. The main (west) and east branches of the Delaware River originate in the southwestern corner of ...
medieval papal singing school and associated choir, the ancestor of the modern Sistine Choir. According to tradition, the schola cantorum was established by Pope Sylvester I (d. 335) and was reorganized by Pope Gregory I (d. 604), but the first ...
the philosophical systems and speculative tendencies of various medieval Christian thinkers, who, working against a background of fixed religious dogma, sought to solve anew general philosophical problems (as of faith and reason, will and intellect, Realism and nominalism, and the ...
Canadian-born American economist best known for his work with colleague Fischer Black on the Black-Scholes option valuation formula, which made options trading more accessible by giving investors a benchmark for valuing. Scholes shared the 1997 Nobel Prize for Economics with ...
German soldier of fortune, a marshal of France, and an English peer, who fought in the service of various countries in the major European wars between 1634 and 1690.
German chemist who discovered and named ozone (1840) and was the first to describe guncotton (nitrocellulose). His teaching posts included one at Epsom, Eng., before he joined the faculty at the University of Basel, Switz. (1828), where he was appointed ...
Rococo-style 1,440-room summer palace of the Habsburgs in Vienna. Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach's first design for the building, meant to rival France's Palace of Versailles, was done in 1690. A second, somewhat less ornate, plan, however, dating from 1695-96 ...
(Oct. 14, 1809), agreement signed at the Schloss Schonbrunn in Vienna after Austria's premature war of liberation against Napoleon collapsed with its defeat at Wagram and its failure to get the Prussian support it had expected. Austria lost about 32,000 ...
Bezirk (district) of Berlin, Germany. The original 13th-century peasant settlement of Alt-Schoneberg was merged in 1874 with Neu-Schoneberg, which was founded by Frederick the Great in 1750 to accommodate weavers from Bohemia.
Austrian political extremist, founder of the Pan-German Party (1885). He was a virulent anti-Semite and was perhaps the best-known spokesman for popular antidemocratic sentiments in the late empire.
German physician whose attempts to establish medicine as a natural science helped create modern methods for the teaching and practice of clinical medicine.
any play performed by students in schools and colleges throughout Europe during the Renaissance. At first these plays were written by scholars in Latin as educational works, especially in Jesuit schools, but they later were viewed as entertainment as well. ...
American explorer and ethnologist noted for his discovery of the source of the Mississippi River and for his writings on Indians of the North American plains.
a sailing ship rigged with fore-and-aft sails on its two or more masts. To the foremast there may also be rigged one or more square topsails or, more commonly, one or more jib sails or Bermuda sails (triangular sails extending ...
German philosopher, often called the "philosopher of pessimism," who was primarily important as the exponent of a metaphysical doctrine of the will in immediate reaction against Hegelian idealism. His writings influenced later existential philosophy and Freudian psychology.
increase in the discharge of electrons from the surface of a heated material by application of an electric field that reduces the value of the energy required for electron emission. The minimum energy required for an electron to escape the ...
archipelago in the Pacific Ocean across the entrance to Cenderawasih Bay, off the northern coast of Irian Jaya provinsi ("province"), Indonesia. The first European sighting of the group was by the Dutch navigator Willem Corneliszoon Schouten. The chief islands are ...
Dutch explorer whose 1615-16 expedition discovered a new route, the Drake Passage, around the southern tip of South America, connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific.
first permanent theatre in Amsterdam, built along the Keizergracht ("Emperor's Canal") in 1637 by Dutch architect Jacob van Campen. It opened on Jan. 3, 1638, with a production of Gysbrecht van Aemstel, a historical tragedy about Amsterdam by Joost van ...
meteoritic mineral of iron and nickel phosphide [(FeNi)3P], which is present in all iron meteorites. It often is found in plates and as shells around troilite nodules.
writer who produced the first great South African novel, The Story of an African Farm (1883). She had a powerful intellect, militantly feminist and liberal views on politics and society, and great vitality that was somewhat impaired by asthma and ...
South African politician who was prime minister of Cape Colony at the outbreak of the South African War (1899-1902); he was the younger brother of author and political activist Olive Schreiner. A moderate politician, he tried to prevent the war ...
Roman Catholic leader under whom the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur and their associated educational institutions were established across the American Midwest and East.
American physicist and winner, with John Bardeen and Leon N. Cooper, of the 1972 Nobel Prize for Physics for developing the BCS theory (for their initials), the first successful microscopic theory of superconductivity.
American chemist who, with Robert H. Grubbs and Yves Chauvin, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2005 for developing metathesis, one of the most important types of chemical reactions used in organic chemistry. Schrock was honoured as "the ...
the fundamental equation of the science of submicroscopic phenomena known as quantum mechanics. The equation, developed (1926) by the Austrian physicist Erwin Schrodinger, has the same central importance to quantum mechanics as Newton's laws of motion have for the large-scale ...
Austrian theoretical physicist who contributed to the wave theory of matter and to other fundamentals of quantum mechanics. He shared the 1933 Nobel Prize for Physics with the British physicist P.A.M. Dirac.
town, Bundesland (federal province) Vorarlberg, western Austria, on the Ill River at the mouth of the Litz Bach; it adjoins the village of Tschagguns and is the main town of the Montafontal (valley), southeast of Feldkirch. It has a long-established ...
Austrian composer who bridged the worlds of Classical and Romantic music, noted for the melody and harmony in his songs (lieder) and chamber music. Among other works are Symphony in C Major (The Great; ...
German comic actor and theatre manager who popularized a vernacular version of the commedia dell'arte form and merged the Italian stock character Harlequin with the German stock character Hans Wurst.
American composer, performer, conductor, and writer noted for his wide range of activity in both jazz and classical music and for his works embracing both jazz and advanced 12-tone elements.
