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Nipigon, Lake ... Nizam al-Mulk

Nipigon, Lake: lake, Thunder Bay district, west-central Ontario, Canada. Lake Nipigon lies 80 miles (130 km) northeast of Thunder Bay. It is about 70 miles (110 km) long and 50 miles (80 ...
Nipissing, Lake: lake, southeastern Ontario, Canada. Lake Nipissing lies midway between the Ottawa River and Georgian Bay. It is 321 square miles (832 square km) in area and has a maximum length ...
Nipkow, Paul Gottlieb: German engineer who discovered television's scanning principle, in which the light intensities of small portions of an image are successively analyzed and transmitted. Nipkow's invention in 1884 of a rotating ...
Nipmuc: Algonquian-speaking Indian tribes who occupied the central plateau of what is now Massachusetts, especially the southern part of Worcester county, and extended into what are now northern Rhode Island and ...
nippapanca: (Pali), in the Madhyamika and Vijnanavada schools of Buddhist philosophy, ultimate reality. See prajnapti.
Nippon Hoso Kyokai: public radio and television system of Japan. It operates two television and three radio networks and is notable for its innovations in high-definition television.
Nippon Steel Corporation: Japanese corporation created by the 1970 merger of Yawata Iron & Steel Co., Ltd., and Fuji Iron & Steel Co., Ltd. It ranks among the world's largest steel corporations. Its ...
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation: Japanese telecommunications company that almost monopolizes Japan's domestic electronic communications industry. It is Japan's largest company and one of the largest companies in the world.
Nippur: ancient city of Mesopotamia, now in southeastern Iraq. It lies northeast of the town of Ad-Diwaniyah. Although never a political capital, Nippur played a dominant role in the religious life ...
Nirankari: religious reform movement within Sikhism. The Nirankari movement was founded by Dayal Das (died 1855), who belonged to a half-Sikh, half-Hindu community in Peshawar. He believed that God is formless, ...
Nirenberg, Marshall Warren: American biochemist and corecipient, with Robert William Holley and Har Gobind Khorana, of the 1968 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. He was noted for his role in deciphering the ...
Nirgal Vallis: sinuous, branching valley located on the planet Mars north of the Argyre impact basin, at about 28° S, 42° W. It is about 400 km (250 miles) long and about ...
nirguna: (Sanskrit: "distinctionless"), concept of primary importance in the orthodox Hindu philosophy of Vedanta, raising the question of whether the supreme being, Brahman, is to be characterized as without qualities (nirguna) ...
nirjara: in Jainism, a religion of India, the destruction of karman (a physical substance that binds itself to individual souls and determines their fate).
Nirmala: an ascetic order of the Sikhs, a religious group of India. Nirmalas ("those without blemish") at first wore only white garments but later adopted the ochre robes worn by Hindu ...
Nirvana: in Indian religious thought, the supreme goal of the meditation disciplines. The concept is most characteristic of Buddhism, in which it signifies the transcendent state of freedom achieved by the ...
Nirvana: American alternative rock group whose breakthrough album, Nevermind (1991), announced a new musical style (grunge) and gave voice to the post-baby boom young adults known as Generation ...
Nis: town in Serbia, Serbia and Montenegro, on the Nisava River. The town is important for its command of the Morava-Vardar and the Nisava River corridors, the two principal routes from ...
Nisa: first capital of the Parthians, located near modern Ashgabat in Turkmenistan. Nisa was traditionally founded by Arsaces I (reigned c. 250-c. 211 BC), and it was reputedly the royal necropolis ...
nise-e: (Japanese: "likeness painting"), form of sketchy portraiture that became fashionable in the court circles of 12th- and 13th-century Japan. Realistic art was originally outside the tradition of Japanese portraiture, which, ...
Nisei: (Japanese: "second-born"), second-generation Japanese in the United States. During World War II all persons of Japanese ancestry on the U.S. West Coast were forcibly evacuated from their homes and relocated ...
Nishapur pottery: Islamic ceramics produced at Nishapur (modern Neyshabur, Iran) that were of bold style and showed links with Sassanian and Central Asian work. The style originated in Transoxania, an ancient district ...
Nishi Amane: philosopher, writer, and publisher who helped introduce Western philosophy, especially British empiricism, to Japan.
Nishida Kitaro: Japanese philosopher who exemplified the attempt by the Japanese to assimilate Western philosophy into the Oriental spiritual tradition.
Nishikawa Sukenobu: Japanese painter of the Ukiyo-e school of popular, colourful paintings and prints, who also was a book designer of the Kyoto-Osaka area. Nishikawa studied painting with masters of two schools, ...
nishiki-e: Japanese polychrome woodblock prints of the Ukiyo-e (q.v.) school that were first made in 1765. The invention of the technique is attributed to Kinroku, and its greatest early master was ...
Nishinomiya: city, Hyogo Prefecture (ken), Honshu, Japan, at the mouth of the Mukogawa (Muko River) on the Inland Sea. It is part of the Hanshin Industrial Region. The city occupies a ...
Nishio: city, Aichi Prefecture (ken), Honshu, Japan, on the lower reaches of the Yahagi-gawa (Yahagi River). Nishio was a castle town and commercial centre during the Tokugawa era (1603-1867). The opening ...
Nishiyama Soin: renga ("linked-verse") poet of the early Tokugawa period (1603-1867) who founded the Danrin school of haikai poetry. Soin's haikai (comical renga) became the transition between the light and clever haikai ...
Nisibis, School of: intellectual centre of East Syrian Christianity (the Nestorian Church) from the 5th to the 7th century. The School of Nisibis (now Nusaybin, Tur.) originated soon after 471, when Narsai, a ...
nisprapanca: (Sanskrit), in the Madhyamika and Vijnanavada schools of Buddhist philosophy, ultimate reality. See prajnapti.
Nissaba: in Mesopotamian religion, Sumerian deity, city goddess of Eresh on the ancient Euphrates River near Uruk in the farming regions; she was goddess of the grasses in general, including the ...
Nissan Motor Co., Ltd.: Japanese industrial corporation that manufactures automobiles, trucks, and buses under the names Nissan and Datsun. The company also designs and manufactures such products as communications satellites, pleasure boats, and machinery. ...
Nisus: in Greek mythology, a son of King Pandion of Megara. His name was given to the Megarian port of Nisaea. Nisus had a purple lock of hair with magic power: ...
Niteroi: city, Rio de Janeiro estado ("state"), eastern Brazil. It lies on the eastern side of the entrance to Guanabara Bay. The city of Rio de Janeiro on ...
Nithard: Frankish count and historian whose works, utilizing important sources and official documents, provide an invaluable firsthand account of contemporary events during the reign of the West Frankish king Charles II.
Nithsdale: valley of the River Nith, Dumfries and Galloway region, southwestern Scotland. It comprises the western part of the historic county of Dumfriesshire and a small portion of eastern Kirkcudbrightshire. The ...
Nitisol: one of the 30 soil groups in the classification system of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Occupying 1.6 percent of the total land surface on Earth, Nitisols are found ...
Nitra: town, Zapadni Slovensko kraj (region), Slovakia. It lies along the Nitra River.
nitrate: any member of either of two classes of compounds derived from nitric acid. The salts of nitric acid are ionic compounds containing the nitrate ion, NO^-₃, and a positive ion, ...
nitrate and iodate minerals: small group of naturally occurring inorganic compounds that are practically confined to the Atacama Desert of northern Chile; the principal locality is Antofagasta. These minerals occur under the loose soil ...
nitric acid: (HNO₃), colourless, fuming, and highly corrosive liquid (freezing point -42° C [-44° F], boiling point 83° C [181° F]) that is a common laboratory reagent and an important industrial chemical ...
nitric oxide: colourless, toxic gas that is formed by the oxidation of nitrogen. Though it has few industrial applications, nitric oxide performs important chemical signaling functions in humans and other animals and ...
nitride: binary compound of nitrogen with a more electropositive element, such as boron, silicon, and most metals. Certain metal nitrides are unstable, and most react with water to form ammonia and ...
nitrifying bacterium: any of a small group of aerobic bacteria (family Nitrobacteraceae) that use inorganic chemicals as an energy source. They are microorganisms that are important in the nitrogen cycle as converters ...
nitrile: any of a class of organic compounds having molecular structures in which a cyano group (&singlehorzbond;C ≡ N) is attached to a carbon atom (C). Nitriles are colourless solids or ...
nitrite: any member of either of two classes of compounds derived from nitrous acid. Salts of nitrous acid are ionic compounds containing the nitrite ion, NO^-₂, and a positive ion such ...
nitro compound: any of a family of chemical compounds in which the nitro group (&singlehorzbond;O&singlehorzbond;N&doublehorzbond;O) forms part of the molecular structure. The most common examples are organic substances in which a carbon ...
nitrobenzene: the simplest aromatic nitro compound, having the molecular formula C₆H₅NO₂. It is used in the manufacture of aniline, benzidine, and other organic chemicals. Nitrobenzene is a colourless to pale yellow, ...
nitrocellulose: a mixture of nitric esters of cellulose, and a highly flammable compound that is the main ingredient of modern gunpowder. Nitrocellulose is a fluffy white substance that retains some of ...
nitrogen: nonmetallic element of Group Va of the periodic table. It is a colourless, odourless, tasteless gas that is the most plentiful element in the Earth's atmosphere, and a constituent of ...
nitrogen cycle: circulation of nitrogen in various forms through nature. Nitrogen, a component of proteins and nucleic acids, is essential to life on Earth. Although 78 percent by volume of the atmosphere ...
nitrogen fixation: any natural or industrial process that causes free nitrogen, which is a relatively inert gas plentiful in air, to combine chemically with other elements to form more reactive nitrogen compounds ...
nitrogen group element: any of the chemical elements that constitute Group Va of the periodic table (see ). The group consists of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), arsenic (As), antimony (Sb), and bismuth (Bi). ...
nitrogen narcosis: effects produced by the gas nitrogen when it is breathed under increased pressure. Nitrogen, a major constituent of air, is quite inert and passes into the fluids and tissues of ...
nitroglycerin: a powerful explosive and an important ingredient of most forms of dynamite (q.v.). It is also used with nitrocellulose in some propellants, especially for rockets and missiles, and it is ...
nitromersol: synthetic mercury-containing organic compound used as an antiseptic for the skin and mucous membranes and as a disinfectant for sterilizing surgical instruments. It is related to merbromin (Mercurochrome) and thimerosal ...
nitroso compound: any of a class of organic compounds having molecular structures in which the nitroso group (-N&doublehorzbond;O) is attached to a carbon or nitrogen atom. Substances in which this group is ...
nitrous acid: (HNO₂), an unstable, weakly acidic compound that has been prepared only in the form of cold, dilute solutions. It is useful in chemistry in converting amines into diazonium compounds, which ...
nitrous oxide: one of several oxides of nitrogen, a colourless gas with pleasant, sweetish odour and taste, which when inhaled produces insensibility to pain preceded by mild hysteria, sometimes laughter. Nitrous oxide ...
Nitta Yoshisada: Japanese warrior whose support of the imperial restoration of the emperor Go-Daigo was crucial in destroying the Kamakura shogunate, the military dictatorship that governed Japan from 1192 until 1333. The ...
Nitti, Francesco Saverio: Italian statesman who was prime minister for a critical year after World War I.
Nitti, Frank: American gangster in Chicago who was Al Capone's chief enforcer and inherited Capone's criminal empire when Capone went to prison in 1931.
Niuafo'ou: northernmost island of Tonga, in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The generally wooded land area of 19 square miles (49 square km) includes a volcanic peak 853 feet (260 m) high, ...
Niuatoputapu: one of the northernmost islands of Tonga, in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. Of volcanic origin, the island has an area of 7 square miles (19 square km) and rises to ...
Niue: internally self-governing island state in free association with New Zealand. It is the westernmost of the Cook Islands but is administratively separate from them. Niue lies 1,340 miles (2,156 km) ...
Nivelle, Robert-Georges: commander in chief of the French armies on the Western Front for five months in World War I. His career was wrecked by the failure of his offensive in the ...
Niven, David: British stage and motion-picture actor who personified dapper charm.
Nivernais: in France, the area administered from Nevers during the ancien regime, and until the French Revolution the last great fief still not reunited to the French crown. Bounded southwest by ...
Nivkh: east Siberian people who live in the region of the Amur River estuary and on nearby Sakhalin Island. They numbered about 4,600 in the late 20th century. Most speak Russian, ...
Nivkh language: isolated language with two main dialects spoken by some 400 Nivkh, roughly 10 percent of the ethnic group. The Nivkh live on Sakhalin Island and along the estuary of the ...
nix: in Germanic mythology, a water being, half human, half fish, that lives in a beautiful underwater palace and mingles with humans by assuming a variety of physical forms (e.g., that ...
Nixon, Pat: American first lady (1969-74), the wife of Richard Nixon, 37th president of the United States, who espoused the cause of volunteerism during her husband's term.
Nixon, Richard M.: 37th president of the United States (1969-74), who, faced with almost certain impeachment for his role in the Watergate Scandal, became the first American president to resign from office. He ...
Niza, Marcos de: Franciscan friar who claimed to have sighted the legendary "Seven Golden Cities of Cibola" in what is now western New Mexico.
Nizam al-Mulk: Persian vizier of the Turkish Seljuq sultans (1063-92), best remembered for his large treatise on kingship, Seyasat-nameh (The Book of Government; or Rules for Kings).