German journalist and historian whose early emphasis on social structures in historical development were influential in the rise of sociological history.
function useful in number theory for investigating properties of prime numbers. Written as zeta(x), it was originally defined as the infinite series zeta(x) = 1 + 2−x + 3−x + ...
German mathematician whose profound and novel approaches to the study of geometry laid the mathematical foundation for Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. He also made important contributions to the theory ...
one of the non-Euclidean geometries that completely rejects the validity of Euclid's fifth postulate and modifies his second postulate. Simply stated, Euclid's fifth postulate is: through a point not on ...
one of the non-Euclidean geometries, which completely reject the validity of Euclid's fifth postulate and modify his second postulate. Simply stated, Euclid's fifth postulate is: through a point not on ...
master sculptor whose wood portrait carvings and statues made him one of the major artists of the late Gothic period in Germany; he was known as the leader of the ...
city, Saxony Land (state), eastern Germany. It lies along the Elbe River, northwest of Dresden. It originated around a Benedictine monastery founded in 1111. A convent was built there in ...
American sociologist and author most noted for The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character (with Reuel Denney and Nathan Glazer, 1950), a work dealing ...
city, capital of Rieti provincia, Lazio (Latium) regione, central Italy, on the Velino River in the Abruzzi Apennines, just southeast of Terni. The ancient town was first settled by the ...
Dutch architect and furniture designer notable for his application of the tenets of the de Stijl movement. He was an apprentice in his father's cabinetmaking business from 1899 to 1906 ...
ruined Cistercian abbey, Ryedale district, administrative county of North Yorkshire, historic county of Yorkshire, England. It lies in the seclusion of a deep valley to which it has given its ...
any of the Berber tribes occupying a part of northeastern Morocco known as the Rif, an Arabic word meaning "edge of cultivated area." The Rif are divided into 19 tribes: ...
mountain range of northern Morocco, extending from Tanger (Tangier) to the Moulouya River valley near the Moroccan-Algerian frontier. For the greater part of its 180-mile (290-kilometre) length, the range hugs ...
municipality in the state and emirate of Bahrain, on north-central Bahrain island, in the Persian Gulf. It is on the north rim of the island's central depression, site of the ...
fraternity of Muslim mystics (Sufis), known in the West as howling dervishes, found primarily in Egypt and Syria and in Turkey until outlawed in 1925. An offshoot of the Qadiriyah ...
firearm with a rifled bore-i.e., having shallow spiral grooves cut inside the barrel to impart a spin to the projectile. The name, most often applied to a weapon fired from ...
any elongated trough formed by the subsidence of a segment of the Earth's crust between dip-slip, or normal, faults. Such a fault is a fracture in the terrestrial surface in ...
viral infection of animals that is transmissible to humans and causes a febrile illness of short duration. Headache, intolerance to light (photophobia), muscle pain, loss of appetite, and prostration are ...
city and capital of Latvia, on both banks of the Western Dvina River, 9 miles (15 km) above its mouth on the Gulf of Riga. An ancient settlement of the ...
large gulf of the Baltic Sea, bounded by the northern coast of Latvia and the western coast of Estonia, about 7,000 sq mi (18,000 sq km) in area. The gulf ...
one of the most prolific and successful French portrait painters of the Baroque period. He was trained at Montpellier before moving to Lyon and finally to Paris in 1681, where ...
sprightly 17th-century French folk dance for couples. Its hopping steps were adopted by the skillful dancers of the French and English courts, where it remained fashionable through the 18th century. ...
one of the brightest stars in the sky, intrinsically as well as in appearance. A blue-white supergiant in the constellation Orion, Rigel is probably about 600 light-years from the Sun ...
(Persian: "country of sand"), arid plateau region in southwestern Afghanistan. Rigestan is, for the greater part, a sandy desert with ridges and small, isolated hills of red sand. The sand ...
American swimmer and diver, who won three Olympic medals and was the first competitor to win a medal in both a swimming and a diving event at the same Olympics.
in astronomy, the east-west coordinate by which the position of a celestial body is ordinarily measured; more precisely, it is the angular distance of a body's hour circle east of ...
any of four species of stout-bodied whales having an enormous head measuring one-quarter to one-third their total body length. From the 17th to 19th century, these whales were hunted for ...
legal petition asserting a right against the English crown, the most notable example being the Petition of Right of 1628, which Parliament sent to Charles I complaining of a series ...
in the United States, any state law forbidding various union-security measures, particularly the union shop, under which workers are required to join a union within a specified time after they ...
one of the basic instruments of the British constitution, the result of the long 17th-century struggle between the Stuart kings and the English people and Parliament. It incorporated the provisions ...
in the United States, the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, which were adopted as a single unit on December 15, 1791, and which constitute a collection of mutually ...
U.S. newspaper reporter, social reformer, and photographer who shocked the U.S. conscience in 1890 by factual description of slum conditions in his book How the Other Half Lives.
city, major port and industrial, commercial, and cultural centre of Croatia, located on the Kvarner (a gulf of the Adriatic Sea). It is the major port of Croatia. The city ...
(Dutch: "State Museum"), national art collection of The Netherlands in Amsterdam. The galleries originated with a royal museum erected in 1808 by Napoleon I's brother Louis Bonaparte, then king of ...
(Dutch: "rice table"), an elaborate meal of Indonesian dishes developed during the Dutch colonial era. Because of its political overtones, the rijsttafel is seldom served today in Indonesia, but it ...
gemeente (commune), Zuid-Holland provincie, western Netherlands, on the southeastern outskirts of The Hague ('s-Gravenhage). It is traversed by the Rotterdam highway and the Vliet River. The Reformed church dates from ...
island in the East River near the entrance of Bowery Bay, north of La Guardia Airport, New York, N.Y., U.S. Politically part of the borough of the Bronx (north), Rikers ...
(Japanese: "standing flowers"), in classical Japanese floral art, a highly conventionalized and formal style of flower arranging. It is difficult to say when rikka became a distinct, recognized form, because ...
the dominant Japanese political party from its inception in 1900 until 1940, when all parties were absorbed into the government-controlled Taisei Yokusankai ("Imperial Rule Assistance Association").
highest mountain range in Bulgaria and in the Balkan Peninsula, and one of the highest ranges in Europe. A northwestern section of the Rhodope Mountains, it has an area of ...
historic monastery and cultural site in the Rhodope Mountains of southwestern Bulgaria. It is situated in a valley of the Rila massif, some 70 miles (110 km) south of Sofia. ...
British-born American entomologist who contributed much to the advancement of the systematic study of insects of economic significance in the United States and helped to establish the Division of Entomology ...
an inherited disorder occurring almost exclusively in Ashkenazic Jews that is caused by abnormal functioning of the autonomic nervous system. Riley-Day syndrome is characterized by emotional instability, decreased tear production, ...
any of various valleys or trenches on the surface of the Moon. The term was introduced by early telescopic observers-probably the German astronomer Johann Schroter about 1800-to denote such lunar ...
quarter and district of the Lima-Callao metropolitan area, north of central Lima, Peru. Created a district in 1921, the site was settled in early colonial days. The Puente de Piedras ...
white, opaque, granular deposit of ice crystals formed on objects that are at a temperature below the freezing point. Rime occurs when supercooled water droplets (at a temperature lower than ...
in French and English prosody, a rhyme produced by agreement in sound not only of the last accented vowel and any succeeding sounds but also of the consonant preceding this ...
in French and English prosody, end rhyme produced by agreement in sound of an accented final vowel and following final consonant or consonants, if any. Examples of
town, capital of Rimini provincia, in the Emilia-Romagna regione of northern Italy. The town is located along the Riviera del Sole of the Adriatic Sea at the mouth of the ...
city, Bas-Saint-Laurent region, eastern Quebec province, Canada. The city lies on a hillside sloping gently toward its deepwater port (sheltered by the Ile Saint-Barnabe) on the south shore of the ...
(Dacrydium cupressinum), coniferous timber tree of the family Podocarpaceae, native to New Zealand. The rimu tree may attain a height of 45 metres (150 feet) or more. The wood is ...
Tibetan Buddhist monk, called the "Great Translator," known primarily for his extensive translations of Indian Buddhist texts into Tibetan, thus furthering the subsequent development of Buddhism in Tibet. First sent ...
in architecture, decorative border or strip, featuring stylized vines with leaves and often with fruit or flowers. It first appears as a decorative motif in classical antiquity. Roman rinceau most ...
