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Avogadro's number
Avogadro's number ävōgä´drō [for Amedeo Avogadro ], number of particles contained in one mole of any substance; it is equal to 602,252,000,000,000,000,000,000, or in scientific notation, 6.02252×10 23 . For example, 12.011 grams of carbon (one mole of carbon) con...
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Axel Heiberg Island
Axel Heiberg Island , 13,583 sq mi (35,180 sq km), in the Arctic Ocean, N Nunavut Territory, Canada, W of Ellesmere Island. It was named by the Norwegian explorer Otto Sverdrup (who explored it 1898-1902) for one of his patrons. The island's plateau surface (3,000-6,000 ft/915-1,830 m high) is deepl...
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Otway Burns
Otway Burns c.1775-1850, American privateer, b. Onslow co., N.C. At the outbreak of the War of 1812, he outfitted the Baltimore clipper Snap-Dragon as a privateer and began one of the most spectacular privateering careers in American history. He destroyed and captured millions of dollars worth of...
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hertz
hertz [for Heinrich R. Hertz ], abbr. Hz, unit of frequency, equal to 1 cycle per second. The term is combined with metric prefixes to denote multiple units such as the kilohertz (1,000 Hz), megahertz (1,000,000 Hz), and gigahertz (1,000,000,000 Hz).
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Paavo Nurmi
Paavo Nurmi , 1897-1973, Finnish track star. Between 1920 and 1932 he set 20 world running records and won nine Olympic gold medals. His Olympic victories included the 10,000-meter run and the cross-country event at Antwerp in 1920, the 1,500-meter and 5,000-meter and cross-country runs at Paris in ...
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Harvey Samuel Firestone
Harvey Samuel Firestone 1868-1938, American industrialist, manufacturer of rubber products, b. Columbiana co., Ohio. The son of a prosperous farmer, Harvey Firestone began to manufacture rubber tires in 1896. He organized (1900) the Firestone Tire & Rubber Company and rapidly became a leader of...
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Rastafarianism
Rastafarianism a religious-cultural movement that began (1930s) in Jamaica. Rastafarians believe that Haile Selassie , also named Ras Tafari, the last emperor of Ethiopia (d. 1975), is the Messiah. They tend to reject European culture and ideas and are particularly noted for their use of marijuana...
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Yazoo land fraud
Yazoo land fraud name given to the sale in 1795 by an act of the Georgia legislature of vast holdings in the Yazoo River country to four land companies following the wholesale bribery of the legislators; the territory comprised most of present Alabama and Mississippi. The companies involved were th...
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Man Booker Prize
Man Booker Prize an annual prize of £50,000 (originally £20,000 ) for a work of fiction by a living British, Irish, or Commonwealth writer. Great Britain's premier literary award, it was originally known as the Booker Prize and in 1969 was underwritten by the British food-distrib...
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ice skating
ice skating gliding along an ice surface on keellike runners known as ice skates.
Skating as a Sport
Skating, besides being an important form of winter recreation and the essential skill in the game of ice hockey (see hockey, ice ) has developed into three different sports—speed sk...
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