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Ferkessedougou ... ferroelectricity

Ferkessedougou: town, northern Cote d'Ivoire. It lies on the road and railroad from Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) to Abidjan. A trade centre (rice, millet, corn [maize], yams, and cotton) among the Senufo ...
Ferlinghetti, Lawrence: American poet, one of the founders of the Beat movement (q.v.) in San Francisco in the mid-1950s. His City Lights bookshop was an early gathering place of the Beats, and ...
Ferlo: relic river valley and region of interior northern Senegal. It lies south of the fertile valley of the Senegal River and the Fouta region and east of the peanut (groundnut) ...
Fermanagh: district, extreme southwestern Northern Ireland. Formerly a county, Fermanagh was established as a district (within the same boundaries) in 1973. It is bounded by the districts of Dungannon and Omagh ...
Fermat prime: prime number of the form 2^2ⁿ + 1, for some positive integer n. For example, 2^2³ + 1 = 2⁸ + 1 = 257 is a Fermat prime. On the basis of his knowledge that numbers of this form are ...
Fermat's last theorem: the statement that there are no natural numbers (1, 2, 3, &elipsis;) x, y, and z such that xⁿ + yⁿ = zⁿ, in which n is a natural number greater than 2. For ...
Fermat's principle: in optics, statement that light traveling between two points seeks a path such that the number of waves (the optical length between the points) is equal, in the first approximation, ...
Fermat, Pierre de: French mathematician who is often called the founder of the modern theory of numbers. Together with Rene Descartes, Fermat was one of the two leading mathematicians of the first half ...
fermentation: originally, the foaming that occurs during the manufacture of wine and beer, a process at least 10,000 years old. That the frothing results from the evolution of carbon dioxide gas ...
Fermi level: a measure of the energy of the least tightly held electrons within a solid, named for Enrico Fermi, the physicist who first proposed it. The value of the Fermi level ...
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory: U.S. national particle-accelerator laboratory and centre for particle-physics research, located in Batavia, Illinois, about 43 km (27 miles) west of Chicago. The facility is operated for the U.S. Department of ...
Fermi surface: in solid-state physics, abstract boundary or interface useful for characterizing and predicting the thermal, electrical, magnetic, and optical properties of metals, semimetals, and semiconductors. It is closely related to lattice ...
Fermi, Enrico: Italian-born American physicist who was one of the chief architects of the nuclear age. He developed the mathematical statistics required to clarify a large class of subatomic phenomena, discovered neutron-induced ...
Fermi-Dirac statistics: in quantum mechanics, one of two possible ways in which a system of indistinguishable particles can be distributed among a set of energy states: each of the available discrete states ...
fermion: any member of a group of subatomic particles having odd half-integral angular momentum (spin 12, 32), named for the Fermi-Dirac statistics that describe its behaviour. Fermions include particles in the ...
fermium: (Fm), synthetic chemical element of the actinide series in Group IIIb of the periodic table, atomic number 100. Fermium (as the isotope fermium-255) is produced by the intense neutron irradiation ...
Fermo: town and archiepiscopal see, Ascoli Piceno provincia, Marche regione, Italy. It is situated on a hill overlooking the Tenna River, near the Adriatic Sea. An ancient stronghold (Firmum Picenum) of ...
fern: any of several nonflowering vascular plants that possess true roots, stems, and complex leaves and that reproduce by spores. They belong to the vascular plant division Filicophyta, having leaves with ...
fern moss: (genus Thuidium), any of several species of plants (order Bryales) that form mats in grassy areas and on soil, rocks, logs, and tree bases throughout the Northern Hemisphere. Fewer than ...
Fernald, Merritt Lyndon: American botanist noted for his comprehensive study of the flora of the northeastern United States.
Fernandel: French comedian whose visual trademarks were comic facial contortions and a wide, toothy grin.
Fernandes, Alvaro: Portuguese sea captain, one of Prince Henry the Navigator's explorers of West Africa.
Fernandes, Antonio: Portuguese explorer and historian.
Fernandes, Joao: Portuguese traveler to West Africa whose seven-month stay among the nomads of Rio de Oro (later in the Spanish Sahara) supplied Prince Henry the Navigator with intelligence for advancing the ...
Fernandez de Avellaneda, Alonso: probably the pseudonym of the otherwise unknown author of Segundo tomo del ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (1614; "Second Book of the Ingenious Knight Don Quixote of La ...
Fernandez de Cordoba, Gonzalo: Spanish military leader renowned for his exploits in southern Italy.
Fernandez de Lizardi, Jose Joaquin: Mexican editor, pamphleteer, and novelist, a leading literary figure in Mexico's national liberation movement.
Fernandez de Moratin, Leandro: dramatist and poet, the most influential Neoclassic literary figure of the Spanish Enlightenment.
Fernandez de Navarrete, Juan: also called El Mudo (Spanish: "The Mute") painter of the Spanish Mannerist school. In 1568 he was appointed painter to the king, who chose him (1576) to play a major ...
Fernandez Retamar, Roberto: Cuban poet, essayist, and literary critic and cultural spokesman for the regime of Fidel Castro.
Fernandez Reyna, Leonel: politician who served as president of the Dominican Republic (1996-2000; 2004- ).
Fernandez, Juan: navigator in the service of Spain who in 1563 sailed from Callao, Peru, to Valparaiso, Chile, in 30 days, a remarkable feat that gained him the title of
Fernandez, Lucas: Spanish dramatist and musician, whose plays are notable for their effective dialogue, simple humour, and skillful use of interpolated songs and music.
Fernandina Beach: city, seat (1824) of Nassau county, extreme northeastern Florida, U.S. It is situated on Amelia Island (one of the Sea Islands), just south of the Georgia border and near the ...
Fernandina Island: one of the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador, in the eastern Pacific Ocean, about 600 mi (965 km) west of Ecuador. Third largest of the islands, with an area of 245 ...
Fernando de Noronha Island: island, South Atlantic Ocean, 225 miles (360 km) northeast of Cape Sao Roque; with its adjacent islets it constitutes part of Pernambuco estado (state), Brazil. The main ...
Ferrabosco, Alfonso, I: Italian composer known for his madrigals, motets, and lute music. The son of a singer and composer, Domenico Maria Ferrabosco, he settled in England in 1562. He traveled abroad on ...
Ferrabosco, Alfonso, II: English composer, viol player, and lutenist, known especially for his music for viol. The illegitimate son of the composer Alfonso Ferrabosco I, he was educated in music at the expense ...
Ferralsol: one of the 30 soil groups in the classification system of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Ferralsols are red and yellow weathered soils whose colours result from an accumulation ...
Ferranti, Sebastian Ziani de: British electrical engineer who promoted the installation of large electrical generating stations and alternating-current distribution networks in England.
Ferrar, Nicholas: Anglican clergyman, founder and director of a celebrated Christian community devoted to spiritual discipline and social service. Ferrar was also a friend of the English devotional poet George Herbert and ...
Ferrara: city, northeastern Emilia-Romagna regione (region), northern Italy, on the Po di Volano, a branch channel of the Po River, northeast of Bologna. Although it is believed to ...
Ferrara-Florence, Council of: ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic church (1438-45) in which the Latin and Greek churches tried to reach agreement on their doctrinal differences and end the schism between them. The ...
Ferrari, Enzo: Italian automobile manufacturer, designer, and racing-car driver whose Ferrari cars often dominated world racing competition in the second half of the 20th century.
Ferrari, Giuseppe: Italian historian and political philosopher who is best known for his study of Italian revolutions.
Ferrari, Lodovico: Italian mathematician who was the first to find an algebraic solution to the biquadratic, or quartic, equation (an algebraic equation that contains the fourth power of the unknown quantity but ...
Ferraris, Galileo: Italian physicist who established the principles of the induction motor, which is now the principal device for the conversion of electrical power to mechanical power.
Ferraro, Geraldine A.: American politician who became the first woman to be nominated for vice president by a major political party in the United States.
Ferre, Charles-Theophile: French revolutionary figure, a follower of the ideology of Auguste Blanqui, who served as director of police during the Paris Commune revolt (1871).
Ferre, Luis A.: governor of Puerto Rico (1969-73) and founder of the New Progressive Party.
Ferre, Rosario: short-story writer, novelist, critic, and professor, one of the leading women authors in contemporary Latin America. She wrote the bulk of her work in her native Spanish, but in 1995 ...
Ferreira da Silva, Adhemar: Brazilian athlete, winner of two Olympic gold medals and five world records in the triple jump. He was the first Brazilian to hold a world record in any event and ...
Ferreira de Castro, Jose Maria: journalist and novelist, considered to be one of the fathers of contemporary Portuguese social-realist (or Neorealist) fiction.
Ferreira, Antonio: Portuguese poet who was influential in fostering the new Renaissance style of poetry and who strongly advocated the use of Portuguese, rather than Spanish or Latin, as his nation's literary ...
Ferreira, Manuel: Portuguese-born scholar and fiction writer whose work centred on African themes.
Ferreira, Vergilio: Portuguese teacher and novelist who turned from an early social realism to more experimental and inward-looking forms of the novel.
Ferrel cell: model of the mid-latitude segment of the Earth's wind circulation, proposed by William Ferrel (1856). In the Ferrel cell, air flows poleward and eastward near the surface and Equatorward and ...
Ferrel, William: American meteorologist known for his law of the deflection of air currents on the rotating Earth.
Ferrer, Jose: American actor and director, who was perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning performance in the title role of the film Cyrano de Bergerac (1950) and for ...
ferret: either of two species of carnivore, the common ferret and the black-footed ferret, belonging to the weasel family (Mustelidae).
Ferri, Ciro: Italian Baroque painter and printmaker of the Roman school who was the chief pupil and assistant of the painter and architect Pietro da Cortona.
ferricrete: iron-rich duricrust, an indurated, or hardened, layer in or on a soil. Soil particles are cemented together by iron oxides (such as Fe₂O₃) precipitated from the groundwater to form an ...
Ferrie, Gustave-Auguste: French scientist and army general who contributed to the development of radio communication in France.
Ferrier, James Frederick: Scottish metaphysician distinguished for his theory of agnoiology, or theory of ignorance.
Ferrier, Kathleen: contralto who was one of the most widely beloved British singers of her day.
Ferrier, Susan Edmonstone: novelist who made an incisive expose of the pretensions of Scottish society in the early 19th century.
ferrierite: hydrated aluminosilicate mineral, one of the members of the zeolite family present in sedimentary rocks. The chemical composition of ferrierite is approximately (Na,K)₂(Ca,Mg)₂Al₆Si₃₀O₇₂·18H₂O; it forms colourless, platy crystals of orthorhombic ...
ferrimagnetism: type of permanent magnetism that occurs in solids in which the magnetic fields associated with individual atoms spontaneously align themselves, some parallel, or in the same direction (as in ferromagnetism), ...
Ferris State University: public, coeducational institution of higher learning in Big Rapids, Mich., U.S. An "applied polytechnic university," Ferris State consists of the Colleges of Allied Health Sciences, Arts and Sciences, Business, Education, ...
ferrite: a ceramic-like material with magnetic properties that are useful in many types of electronic devices. Ferrites are hard, brittle, iron-containing, and generally gray or black and are polycrystalline-i.e., made up ...
Ferro: island, Santa Cruz de Tenerife provincia (province), Canary Islands comunidad autonoma (autonomous community), Spain, the westernmost and smallest of the Canary Islands in the ...
ferroalloy: an alloy of iron (less than 50 percent) and one or more other metals, important as a source of various metallic elements in the production of alloy steels. The principal ...
ferroaugite: iron-rich variety of the mineral augite (q.v.).
ferrocene: the earliest and best known of the so-called sandwich compounds; these are derivatives of transition metals in which two organic ring systems are bonded symmetrically to the metal atom. Its ...
ferrochromium: alloy of chromium with 30 to 50 percent iron, used to incorporate chromium into steel. It is produced in an electric furnace using chromium ore, iron or iron ore, and ...
ferroelectricity: property of certain nonconducting crystals, or dielectrics, that exhibit spontaneous electric polarization (separation of the centre of positive and negative electric charge, making one side of the crystal positive and ...