Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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W particle ... Wagram, Battle of

W particle: one of two massive electrically charged subatomic particles that are thought to transmit the weak force-that is, the force that governs radioactive decay in certain kinds of atomic nuclei. According to the Standard Model of particle physics that describes the ...
W.H., Mr.: person known only by his initials, to whom the first edition of William Shakespeare's sonnets (1609) was dedicated:To the onlie begetter ofThese insung sonnetsMr. W.H. all happinesseAnd that eternitiePromisedbyOur ever-living poetWishethThe well-wishingAdventurer inSettingForth
W.R. Grace & Co.: American industrial company, with international interests in specialty chemicals, construction materials, coatings, and sealants. It is headquartered in Columbia, Maryland.
Wa: hill-dwelling peoples of eastern Myanmar (Burma), where they are generally called Lawa, and southwestern Yunnan province of China, where they are generally called Va, or Wa. They speak an Austro-Asiatic language related to Mon-Khmer. The pagan, or "wild," Wa are ...
Wa-fang-tien: city in Liaoning sheng (province), China. The city is situated in the centre of the Liaotung Peninsula and is an important market centre for the agriculture and fruit industry of the area, which specializes in growing apples, pears, and grapes. ...
Waagenoceras: genus of extinct cephalopods (animals related to the modern squid, octopus, and nautilus) found as fossils in Permian marine rocks (from about 286 to 245 million years ago). Waagenoceras has a small, globular shell whose distinctive pattern of sutures between ...
Waals, Johannes Diederik van der: Dutch physicist, winner of the 1910 Nobel Prize for Physics for his research on the gaseous and liquid states of matter. His work made the study of temperatures near absolute zero possible.
Wabana: town, southeastern Newfoundland, Canada, just northwest of St. John's, on Bell Island in Conception Bay. Located in the centre of one of the world's richest deposits of red hematite iron ore, the town grew after the beginning of mining operations ...
Wabar Craters: group of meteorite craters discovered in 1932 in the Rub' al-Khali desert of Saudi Arabia. The largest crater is 330 feet (100 m) in diameter, 40 feet (12 m) deep, partially filled with sand, and thought to be an explosion ...
Wabash: city, seat (1835) of Wabash county, northeastern Indiana, U.S., on the Wabash River, 45 miles (72 km) west-southwest of Fort Wayne. It was platted in 1834 on land ceded to the U.S. government by the Potawatomi and Miami Indians in ...
Wabash River: largest southward-flowing tributary of the Ohio River, rising in Grand Lake, western Ohio. It flows generally westward across Indiana past the cities of Huntington, Wabash, Logansport, and Lafayette, then southward to Terre Haute. Just south of that city it forms ...
Waccho: king of the Lombards in the period preceding the invasion of Italy, when they occupied territory roughly coinciding with Austria north of the Danube River.
Wace: Anglo-Norman author of two verse chronicles, the Roman de Brut (1155) and the Roman de Rou (1160-74), named respectively after the reputed founders of the Britons and Normans.
Wach, Joachim: Protestant theologian and one of the foremost scholars in the modern study of religion.
Wachsmann, Konrad: German-born American architect notable for his contributions to the mass production of building components.
Wackenroder, Wilhelm Heinrich: writer and critic who was the originator, with his friend Ludwig Tieck, of some of the most important ideas of German Romanticism.
Wackernagel, Jacob: Swiss historical and comparative linguist known primarily for his monumental work on Sanskrit.
Waco: city, seat (1850) of McLennan county, north-central Texas, U.S. Waco lies along the Brazos River, some 100 miles (160 km) south of Dallas. It was founded in 1849 on the site of a Waco (Hueco) Indian village near a Texas ...
wad: black and earthy substance that consists mainly of hydrated manganese oxides; it is an important ore of manganese. It varies considerably in chemical composition and contains different impurities, often in large amounts. Wad is very soft, readily soils the fingers, ...
Wad Madani: city, east-central Sudan. Wad Madani lies on the west bank of the Blue Nile, 85 miles (136 km) southeast of Khartoum, at an elevation of 1,348 feet (411 m). It owes its recent growth to the irrigated lands of the ...
Wadai: historical African kingdom east of Lake Chad and west of Darfur, in what is now the Ouaddai (q.v.) region of eastern Chad. It was founded in the 16th century, and a Muslim dynasty was established there about 1630. Long subordinate ...
Waddenzee: shallow inlet of the North Sea between the West Frisian Islands and the northern Netherlands mainland. The inlet extends from Noord-Holland to the northeast, where the islands gradually curve toward the mainland and the channel narrows to a few miles. ...
Waddington, C.H.: British embryologist, geneticist, and philosopher of science.
Waddington, William Henry: French scholar, diplomat, and politician. His appointment as French premier by the moderate Republicans, largely because of his cautious and colourless personality, marked the beginning of a trend in the Third Republic toward the exclusion from power of outstanding men.
Wade, Benjamin F.: U.S. senator during the Civil War whose radical views brought him into conflict with presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.
Wade, Sir Thomas Francis: British diplomatist and Sinologist who developed the famous Wade-Giles system of romanizing the Chinese language.
Wade-Davis Bill: (1864), unsuccessful attempt by Radical Republicans and others in the U.S. Congress to set Reconstruction policy before the end of the Civil War. The bill, sponsored by senators Benjamin F. Wade and Henry W. Davis, provided for the appointment of ...
Wade-Giles romanization: system of romanizing the modern Chinese written language, originally devised to simplify Chinese language characters for the Western world. Initiated by Sir Thomas Francis Wade (q.v.), the system was modified by the Cambridge professor Herbert Allen Giles in his Chinese-English ...
Wadgaon, Convention of: (Jan. 13, 1779), compact concluded after the First Maratha War in India (1775-82), marking the end of British efforts to intervene in Maratha affairs by making Raghunath Rao peshwa (the nominal leader of the Maratha Confederacy) or at least regent ...
Wadi al-Jadid, Al-: desert muhafazah (governorate), southwestern Egypt. It includes the entire southwestern quadrant of the country, from the Nile River valley (east) to the frontiers with The Sudan (south) and Libya (west). Its total area covers approximately two-fifths of ...
Wadi Halfa: town, extreme northern Sudan. It lies on the east bank of the Nile River 6 miles (10 km) below the Second Cataract, just south of the Egyptian border. Located within ancient Nubia, the town and its environs are rich in ...
Wafd: (Arabic: "Egyptian Delegation"), nationalist political party that was instrumental in gaining Egyptian independence from Britain. Organized by Sa'd Zaghlul on Nov. 13, 1918, as a permanent delegation of the Egyptian people, it demanded a voice in London and at the ...
waffle: crisp raised cake baked in a waffle iron, a hinged metal griddle with a honeycombed or fancifully engraved surface that allows a thin layer of batter to cook evenly and crisply. Baking powder is the typical leavening in American waffles, ...
wage and salary: income derived from human labour. Technically, all payments for the use of labour, mental or physical, are covered, but in ordinary usage the terms exclude income of the self-employed and are restricted to compensation of employees. Occasionally fringe benefits are ...
wage theory: portion of economic theory that attempts to explain the determination of the payment of labour.
wage-price control: setting of government guidelines for limiting increases in wages and prices. It is a principal tool in incomes policy (q.v.).
Wagga Wagga: city, southeastern New South Wales, Australia, situated on the Murrumbidgee River. A service centre for the fertile Riverina district (chiefly wheat and sheep), it is also the site of an agricultural college and research institute, a college of advanced education, ...
Wagner Act: the single most important piece of labour legislation enacted in the United States in the 20th century. It was enacted to eliminate employers' interference with the autonomous organization of workers into unions.
Wagner, Carl: German physical chemist and metallurgist who helped advance the understanding of the chemistry of solid-state materials, especially the effects of imperfections at the atomic level on the properties of compounds such as oxides and sulfides, and of metals and alloys.
Wagner, Cosima: wife of the composer Richard Wagner and director of the Bayreuth Festivals from his death in 1883 to 1908.
Wagner, Honus: American professional baseball player, one of the first five men elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame (1936). He was generally considered the greatest shortstop in baseball history and by some was regarded as the finest all-around player in the ...
Wagner, Otto: Austrian architect and teacher, generally held to be a founder and leader of the modern movement in European architecture.
Wagner, Richard: German dramatic composer and theorist whose operas and music had a revolutionary influence on the course of Western music, either by extension of his discoveries or reaction against them. Among his major works are The Flying Dutchman ...
Wagner, Robert F: U.S. senator and leading architect of the modern welfare state.
Wagner, Robert F.: American Democratic Party politician and mayor of New York City (1954-65).
Wagner-Jauregg, Julius: Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist whose treatment of syphilitic meningoencephalitis, or general paresis, by the artificial induction of malaria constituted the first example of shock therapy. The method brought a previously incurable fatal disease under medical control and earned him the ...
wagon: four-wheeled vehicle designed to be drawn by draft animals and known to have been used as early as the 1st century BC, incorporating such earlier innovations as the spoked wheel and metal wheel rim. Early examples also had such features ...
wagon: musical instrument, a Japanese six-stringed board zither with movable bridges. It is closely connected with courtly, Shinto, and vocal music.
wagon train: caravan of wagons organized by settlers in the United States for emigration to the West during the late 18th and most of the 19th centuries. Composed of up to 100 Conestoga wagons (q.v.; sometimes called prairie schooners), wagon trains soon ...
wagonette: horse-drawn carriage designed to carry a large number of passengers who sat on long bench-style seats facing each other. The driver's seat was separate and mounted from the front, while passengers boarded the vehicle from a door in the rear. ...
Wagram, Battle of: (July 5-6, 1809), victory for Napoleon, which forced Austria to sign an armistice and led eventually to the Treaty of Schonbrunn in October, ending Austria's 1809 war against the French control of Germany. The battle was fought on the Marchfeld ...