Encyclopædia Britannica Australia -

Encyclopedias since 1768

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Wayne ... Weber's Line

Wayne: county, north-central New York state, U.S. It comprises a lowland region bordered by Lake Ontario to the north and intersected by the New York State Canal System (completed 1918), which incorporates the Erie Canal (1825). There are large marshes in ...
Wayne State University: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Detroit, Mich., U.S. It is a comprehensive research university, comprising colleges of liberal arts, science, education, engineering, fine arts, nursing, pharmacy and allied health professions, and urban, labour, and management affairs. It also ...
Wayne, Anthony: prominent American general during the Revolutionary War, who later destroyed the Northwest Indian Confederation at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in Ohio (Aug. 20, 1794).
Wayne, James M.: associate justice of the United States Supreme Court (1835-67).
Wayne, John: major American motion-picture actor, who embodied the image of the strong, taciturn cowboy or soldier, and who in many ways personified the idealized American values of his era.
Waynesboro: city, administratively independent of, but located in, Augusta county, north-central Virginia, U.S. It lies in the Shenandoah Valley along the South River, near the junction of Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway, 28 miles (45 km) west of Charlottesville. ...
Waynflete, William of: English lord chancellor and bishop of Winchester who founded Magdalen College of the University of Oxford.
Wazir, Khalil Ibrahim al-: Palestinian leader who became the military strategist and second in command of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
Wazirabad: town, northern Punjab province, Pakistan, just east of the Chenab River. It is an important rail junction, with the Sialkot and Faisalabad (formerly Lyallpur) lines of the Pakistan Western Railway branching off and crossing the Chenab River at the Alexandra ...
Waziristan: geographic region of the North-West Frontier Province, Pakistan. It is a barren, mountainous country occupied by part of the Sulaiman Range and bounded north by the Kurram River, south by the Gumal River, and west by Afghanistan. The region's rivers, ...
Wazyk, Adam: Polish poet and novelist who began his career as a propagandist for Stalinism but ended as one of its opponents.
Weah, George: Liberian football (soccer) player, who was named African, European, and World Player of the Year in 1995-an unprecedented achievement. He won his first African Player of the Year award in 1989. His talents on the field were equaled by his ...
weak force: a fundamental force of nature that underlies some forms of radioactivity, governs the decay of unstable subatomic particles such as mesons, and initiates the nuclear fusion reaction that fuels the Sun. The weak force acts upon all known fermions-i.e., elementary ...
weakfish: (genus Cynoscion), any member of a group of fishes in the croaker family, Sciaenidae (order Perciformes). A half dozen species inhabit the coastal regions of North America.
Weald, The: ancient raised tract of forest nearly 40 miles (64 km) wide in southeastern England, separating the London basin from the English Channel coast. The Weald (Saxon: Andredsweald) is developed on an eroded dome of varied rock strata, and the chalk ...
Wealden: district, administrative county of East Sussex, historic county of Sussex, England. The district takes its name from that of the Weald, a region of forested ridges that lies between the chalk hills of the North and South Downs. Wealden is ...
wealth and income, distribution of: the way in which the wealth and income of a nation are divided among its population, or the way in which the wealth and income of the world are divided among nations. Such patterns of distribution are discerned and studied ...
weapon: an instrument used in combat for the purpose of killing, injuring, or defeating an enemy. A weapon may be a shock weapon, held in the hands, such as the club, mace, or sword. It may also be a missile weapon, ...
weapon of mass destruction: weapon with the capacity to inflict death and destruction on such a massive scale and so indiscriminately that its very presence in the hands of a hostile power can be considered a grievous threat. Modern weapons of mass destruction are ...
weapons system: any integrated system, usually computerized, for the control and operation of weapons of a particular kind. Intercontinental ballistic missiles, long-range bombers, and antiballistic missiles are the weaponry of the strategic weapons system (q.v.). Guided missiles operating at shorter range, e.g., ...
wear: the removal of material from a solid surface as a result of mechanical action exerted by another solid. Wear chiefly occurs as a progressive loss of material resulting from the mechanical interaction of two sliding surfaces under load. Wear is ...
Wear Valley: district, administrative and historic county of Durham, northeastern England, in the northwestern part of the county. Lying mostly within a section of the Pennines, Wear Valley district is predominantly a high, bleak limestone upland, 1,000 to 2,300 feet (305 to ...
Wear, River: river that rises near Wearhead in the county of Durham, England, and enters the North Sea at Sunderland. With headwaters in the Pennines, it flows through Weardale and once entered the sea in the vicinity of Hartlepool, but it was ...
weasel: any of various small carnivores with very elongated, slender bodies. Most live in the Northern Hemisphere and belong to the genus Mustela, which in addition to weasels proper includes 16 species of ferrets and polecats as well ...
weather: state of the atmosphere at a particular place during a short period of time. It involves such atmospheric phenomena as temperature, humidity, precipitation (type and amount), air pressure, wind, and cloud cover. Weather differs from climate in that the latter ...
weather bureau: agency established by many nations to observe and report the weather and to issue forecasts and warnings of weather and flood conditions affecting national safety, welfare, and economy. In each country the national weather bureau strongly affects almost every citizen's ...
weather forecasting: the prediction of the weather through application of the principles of physics, supplemented by a variety of statistical and empirical techniques. In addition to predictions of atmospheric phenomena themselves, weather forecasting includes predictions of changes on the Earth's surface caused ...
weather map: any map or chart that shows the meteorological elements at a given time over an extended area. The earliest weather charts were made well before 1835 by collecting synchronous weather reports by mail. The first telegraphic collection of synoptic meteorological ...
weather modification: the deliberate or the inadvertent alternation of atmospheric conditions by human activity, sufficient to modify the weather on local or regional scales.
weather satellite: any of a class of Earth satellites designed to monitor meteorological conditions (see Earth satellite).
weatherfish: any of certain fishes of the loach (q.v.) group.
Weatherford: city, seat of Parker county, north-central Texas, U.S. It lies some 30 miles (50 km) west of Fort Worth. It originated in 1855 as the county seat and was named for Jefferson Weatherford, a member of the Texas Senate. Indian ...
weathering: disintegration or alteration of rock in its natural or original position at or near the Earth's surface through physical, chemical, and biological processes induced or modified by wind, water, and climate.
weaver: any of a number of small finchlike birds of the Old World, or any of several related birds that are noted for their nest-building techniques using grass stems and other plant fibres. They are particularly well-known for their roofed nests, ...
Weaver, James B: American politician who leaned toward agrarian radicalism; he twice ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. presidency, as the Greenback-Labor candidate (1880) and as the Populist candidate (1892).
Weaver, John: dancer, ballet master, choreographer, and theorist known as the father of English pantomime.
Weaver, River: river rising on the boundary between the counties of Shropshire and Cheshire, England, and then flowing 45 miles (72 km) north to reach the Irish Sea estuary of the River Mersey to the west of Runcorn. In its upper reaches ...
Weaver, Robert C.: noted economist who was the first African American to serve in the U.S. cabinet.
weaver-finch: any of numerous songbirds belonging to the family Estrildidae (order Passeriformes), individually called grass finch, mannikin, and waxbill (qq.v.). They are finchlike Old World birds. Most of the 107 species are small or tiny seed-eaters with short conical bills. They ...
Weavers, the: seminal American folksinging group of the late 1940s and '50s. The original members were Lee Hays (b. 1914, Little Rock, Ark., U.S., -d. Aug. 26, 1981, Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y., ), Ronnie Gilbert (b. c. 1927, New York, N.Y., ), Fred Hellerman ...
weaving: production of fabric by interlacing two sets of yarns so that they cross each other, normally at right angles, usually accomplished with a hand- or power-operated loom.
Webb, Chick: black American jazz drummer who led one of the dominant big bands of the swing era. Its swing, precision, and popularity made it the standard of excellence to which other big bands aspired.
Webb, Clement Charles Julian: English scholar and philosopher remembered for his contribution to the study of the societal aspects of religion.
Webb, Mary: English novelist best known for her book Precious Bane (1924). Her lyrical style conveys a rich and intense impression of the Shropshire countryside and its people. Her love of nature and a sense of impending doom within her novels invite ...
Webb, Philip Speakman: architect and designer especially known for his unconventional country houses, who was a pioneer figure in the English domestic revival movement.
Webb, Sidney and Beatrice: English Socialist economists (husband and wife), early members of the Fabian Society, and co-founders of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Sidney Webb also helped reorganize the University of London into a federation of teaching institutions and served ...
Webb, William Henry: American naval architect, one of the most versatile and successful shipbuilders of his day, who in 1889 established and endowed the Webb Institute of Naval Architecture at Glen Cove, N.Y. Webb began shipbuilding in 1836 and by 1869 had more ...
weber: unit of magnetic flux in the International System of Units (SI), defined as the amount of flux that, linking an electrical circuit of one turn (one loop of wire), produces in it an electromotive force of one volt as the ...
Weber State University: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Ogden, Utah, U.S. It is part of the Utah System of Higher Education. Its 400-acre (162-hectare) campus overlooks Ogden and the Great Salt Lake from a foothill of the Wasatch Range. The university ...
Weber's law: historically important psychological law quantifying the perception of change in a given stimulus. The law states that the change in a stimulus that will be just noticeable is a constant ratio of the original stimulus. It has been shown not ...
Weber's Line: hypothetical boundary between the Oriental and Australasian faunal regions, representing the apparent midline in the mixing of the two faunas. First proposed in 1902 as a replacement for Wallace's Line (q.v.) and modified by many subsequent investigators, Weber's Line extends ...