• Eldred, John (British explorer)

    Ralph Fitch: …1583, together with John Newberry, John Eldred, William Leedes, and James Story, Fitch embarked in the Tiger and reached Syria in late April. (Act I, scene 3 of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth alludes to the trip.) From Aleppo (Syria), they went overland to the Euphrates, which they descended to Al-Fallūjah, now…

  • Eldredge, Niles (American paleontologist)

    Stephen Jay Gould: With Niles Eldredge, he developed in 1972 the theory of punctuated equilibrium, a revision of Darwinian theory proposing that the creation of new species through evolutionary change occurs not at slow, constant rates over millions of years but rather in rapid bursts over periods as short…

  • Eldridge, David Roy (American musician)

    Roy Eldridge was an American trumpeter, one of the great creative musicians of the 1930s. A child prodigy, Eldridge began his professional career in 1917 when, on New Year’s Eve, he played the drums in his elder brother’s band. He went to New York City in 1930 and played in the trumpet sections of

  • Eldridge, Roy (American musician)

    Roy Eldridge was an American trumpeter, one of the great creative musicians of the 1930s. A child prodigy, Eldridge began his professional career in 1917 when, on New Year’s Eve, he played the drums in his elder brother’s band. He went to New York City in 1930 and played in the trumpet sections of

  • Elea (ancient city-state, Greece)

    Elis, ancient Greek region and city-state in the northwestern corner of the Peloponnese, well known for its horse breeding and for the Olympic Games, which were allegedly founded there in 776 bc. The region was bounded on the north by Achaea, on the east by Arcadia, and on the south by Messenia.

  • Elea (ancient city, Italy)

    Elea, ancient city in Lucania, Italy, about 25 miles southeast of Paestum; home of the Eleatic school of philosophers, including Parmenides and Zeno. The city was founded about 535 bc by Phocaean Greek refugees on land seized from the native Oenotrians. Unlike other Greek cities in Italy, Elea was

  • Eleanor (fictional character)

    King John: …are John’s domineering mother, Queen Eleanor (formerly Eleanor of Aquitaine), and Philip the Bastard, who supports the king and yet mocks all political and moral pretensions.

  • Eleanor Crosses (English history)

    Eleanor Of Castile: …death, Edward erected the famous Eleanor Crosses—several of which still stand—at each place where her coffin rested on its way to London.

  • Eleanor Holm: From Poolside to Press Box

    Although swimmer Eleanor Holm didn’t compete at the 1936 Games, she garnered more press than many of the athletes who did. After winning a gold medal at the 1932 Games in Los Angeles, the young and attractive Holm moved to Hollywood, hoping to capitalize on her newfound celebrity. She auditioned

  • Eleanor of Aquitaine (fictional character)

    King John: …are John’s domineering mother, Queen Eleanor (formerly Eleanor of Aquitaine), and Philip the Bastard, who supports the king and yet mocks all political and moral pretensions.

  • Eleanor of Aquitaine (queen consort of France and England)

    Eleanor of Aquitaine was the queen consort of both Louis VII of France (1137–52) and Henry II of England (1152–1204) and mother of Richard I (the Lionheart) and John of England. She was perhaps the most powerful woman in 12th-century Europe. Eleanor was the daughter and heiress of William X, duke

  • Eleanor Of Castile (queen of England)

    Eleanor Of Castile was the queen consort of King Edward I of England (ruled 1272–1307). Her devotion to Edward helped bring out his better qualities; after her death, his rule became somewhat arbitrary. Eleanor was the daughter of King Ferdinand III of Castile and his wife, Joan of Ponthieu. In

  • Eleanor of Guyenne (queen consort of France and England)

    Eleanor of Aquitaine was the queen consort of both Louis VII of France (1137–52) and Henry II of England (1152–1204) and mother of Richard I (the Lionheart) and John of England. She was perhaps the most powerful woman in 12th-century Europe. Eleanor was the daughter and heiress of William X, duke

  • Eleanor Of Provence (queen of England)

    Eleanor Of Provence was the queen consort of King Henry III of England (ruled 1216–72); her widespread unpopularity intensified the severe conflicts between the King and his barons. Eleanor’s father was Raymond Berengar IV, count of Provence, and her mother was the daughter of Thomas I, count of

  • Eleanor Rigby (song by Lennon and McCartney)

    the Beatles: Songs such as “Yesterday,” “Eleanor Rigby,” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” not only became immortal pop songs but also changed the nature of songwriting.

  • Eleanor Roosevelt on Franklin Delano Roosevelt

    Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) was many things: an American first lady, a United Nations diplomat, a globe-trotting humanitarian, and one of the most recognizable women in the world of her day. She was also a wife, and it was in this more private and personal capacity that she wrote for Britannica

  • Eleanor the Great (film by Johansson [2025])

    Scarlett Johansson: JoJo Rabbit and Marriage Story: …made her directorial debut with Eleanor the Great, about a 94-year-old woman (played by June Squibb) who loses her best friend.

  • Eleatic One (philosophy)

    Eleatic One, in Eleatic philosophy, the assertion of Parmenides of Elea that Being is one (Greek: hen) and unique and that it is continuous, indivisible, and all that there is or ever will be. His deduction of the predicate one from his assertion that only Being exists is not adequately explicit;

  • Eleaticism (philosophy)

    Eleaticism, one of the principal schools of ancient pre-Socratic philosophy, so called from its seat in the Greek colony of Elea (or Velia) in southern Italy. This school, which flourished in the 5th century bce, was distinguished by its radical monism—i.e., its doctrine of the One, according to

  • Eleazar (New Testament parable figure)

    Lazarus: Lazarus is also the name given by the Gospel According to Luke (16:19–31) to the beggar in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. It is the only proper name attached to a character in the parables of Jesus.

  • Eleazar (Old Testament figure)

    biblical literature: Events in Edom and Moab: …is succeeded by his son Eleazar, and from which they proceed (chapter 21) to bypass Edom in an attempt to approach Canaan from the east. Arrived at the border of what was geographically part of Moab but politically the Amorite kingdom of Sihon, they are refused passage and proceed to…

  • Eleazar ben Azariah (rabbinic scholar)

    Eleazar ben Azariah was a Jewish rabbinic scholar, one of the Palestinian tannaim (those who compiled the Jewish Oral Law), whose practical maxims constitute some of the best-known sayings of the Talmud. Eleazar was a wealthy, learned, and highly esteemed resident of Jabneh who traced his descent

  • Eleazar ben Judah ben Kalonymos (German rabbi)

    Eleazar ben Judah Of Worms was a Jewish rabbi, mystic, Talmudist, and codifier. Along with the Sefer Ḥasidim (1538; “Book of the Pious”), of which he was a coauthor, his voluminous works are the major extant documents of medieval German Ḥasidism (an ultrapious sect that stressed prayer and

  • Eleazar ben Judah Of Worms (German rabbi)

    Eleazar ben Judah Of Worms was a Jewish rabbi, mystic, Talmudist, and codifier. Along with the Sefer Ḥasidim (1538; “Book of the Pious”), of which he was a coauthor, his voluminous works are the major extant documents of medieval German Ḥasidism (an ultrapious sect that stressed prayer and

  • Eleazar ben Kalir (Palestinian author)

    Hebrew literature: Piyyuṭim: Yose ben Yose, Yannai, and Eleazar ha-Kalir, or ben Kalir—lived in that order, but when or where in Palestine any of them lived is not known. The accepted datings are 3rd century and 5th–6th century ad. Many piyyuṭim are still used in the synagogue.

  • Eleazar ha-Kalir (Palestinian author)

    Hebrew literature: Piyyuṭim: Yose ben Yose, Yannai, and Eleazar ha-Kalir, or ben Kalir—lived in that order, but when or where in Palestine any of them lived is not known. The accepted datings are 3rd century and 5th–6th century ad. Many piyyuṭim are still used in the synagogue.

  • Eleazar of Bethany (biblical figure)

    Lazarus, (“God Has Helped”), either of two figures mentioned in the New Testament. The miraculous story of Lazarus being brought back to life by Jesus is known from the Gospel According to John (11:1–45). Lazarus of Bethany was the brother of Martha and Mary and lived at Bethany, near Jerusalem.

  • Eleazar Rokeaḥ (German rabbi)

    Eleazar ben Judah Of Worms was a Jewish rabbi, mystic, Talmudist, and codifier. Along with the Sefer Ḥasidim (1538; “Book of the Pious”), of which he was a coauthor, his voluminous works are the major extant documents of medieval German Ḥasidism (an ultrapious sect that stressed prayer and

  • Elecatinus oceanops (fish)

    goby: …animals is typified by the neon goby (Elecatinus oceanops), a small Caribbean species brilliantly banded with blue. It is one of several members of the genus that function as “cleaners,” picking and eating the parasites from the bodies of larger fishes. Mudskippers (Periophthalmus) are amphibious and live in the mudflats…

  • elect, the (Christianity)

    Arminianism: …of the divine decrees respecting election and reprobation. For Arminius, God’s will as unceasing love was the determinative initiator and arbiter of human destiny. The movement that became known as Arminianism, however, tended to be more liberal than Arminius.

  • election (Christianity)

    Arminianism: …of the divine decrees respecting election and reprobation. For Arminius, God’s will as unceasing love was the determinative initiator and arbiter of human destiny. The movement that became known as Arminianism, however, tended to be more liberal than Arminius.

  • Election (film by Payne [1999])

    Matthew Broderick: The Producers and roles from the late 1990s and early 2000s: …teacher in the 1999 movie Election opposite Reese Witherspoon’s overachieving student. In the early 2000s Broderick also appeared in You Can Count on Me (2000), The Stepford Wives (2004), and Strangers with Candy (2005).

  • élection (French government)

    France: Governmental reforms: …the 1350s in districts (élections), whose numbers had vastly increased since the time of Charles V. The élections were now subordinated to four regional généralités, corresponding to the offices of treasury. The old Chambre des Comptes had lost parts of its jurisdiction to more specialized courts in 1390, of…

  • election (political science)

    election, the formal process of selecting a person for public office or of accepting or rejecting a political proposition by voting. It is important to distinguish between the form and the substance of elections. In some cases, electoral forms are present but the substance of an election is

  • Election Commission of India

    Election Commission of India (ECI), constitutionally mandated autonomous body that was established in 1950 to foster the democratic process in India by administering federal (central) and state election processes. It organizes and conducts elections to the Indian Parliament and legislatures of all

  • Election Day (ProCon debate)

    Election Day in the United States has occurred on the Tuesday following the first Monday in November ever since President John Tyler signed an 1845 law establishing a specific voting day for the entire country. The decision was made taking into account farmers, a large portion of the voting

  • election fraud (politics)

    MAGA movement: The role of the MAGA movement in Trump’s campaigns and presidency: …the race, claiming that the election had been “rigged” by Democrats. Motivated by this lie, a MAGA-aligned crowd stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Whatever embarrassment the attack caused the movement, however, was short-lived. Quite the contrary, in fact: within a year most members of the MAGA movement…

  • election law (government)

    Twelfth Amendment: …States repealing and revising presidential election procedures.

  • election law in the United States (United States government)

    election law in the United States, the set of legal rules overseeing political institutions and activities in the United States, including electoral structure, election administration, campaigns, voting rights, redistricting, campaign finance, political parties, and ballot measures, such as

  • election poll (public opinion)

    public opinion: Criticisms and justifications: Critics allege also that election polls create a “bandwagon effect”—that people want to be on the winning side and therefore switch their votes to the candidates whom the polls show to be ahead. They complain that surveys undermine representative democracy, since issues should be decided by elected representatives on…

  • élection, pays d’ (French history)

    France: Military and financial organization: …areas of central France, the pays d’élection, the provincial assemblies, ceded their right to approve taxation and disappeared altogether. But, in those provinces where the provincial Estates survived (the pays d’état), the right to vote the amount of royal taxation also survived. During the Italian wars, meetings of the Estates…

  • electioneering communications

    Buckley v. Valeo: Consequences and later developments: …and expenditures to include “electioneering communications” paid for with corporate or union general-treasury funds. (Electioneering communications were defined as broadcast political advertisements that refer clearly to a candidate and are made no more than 60 days before a general election or no more than 30 days before a primary…

  • Elections Canada (Canadian regulatory agency)

    Conservative Party of Canada: …Canada was officially registered with Elections Canada (an independent agency established by the Canadian Parliament to regulate elections and political parties) on December 8, 2003.

  • elective abortion (pregnancy)

    pregnancy: Abortion: An elective abortion is the interruption of a pregnancy before the 20th week of gestation at the woman’s request for reasons other than maternal health or fetal disease. Most abortions in the United States are performed for this reason.

  • Elective Affinities (work by Goethe)

    German literature: Goethe and the Romantics: Goethe’s novel Die Wahlverwandtschaften (1809; Elective Affinities), with its emphasis on the supranatural and spiritual as well as on the sainthood of the female protagonist, is an example of this new style. Another example is Part II of his Faust drama. This sprawling cosmic allegory dramatizes the magician’s career at…

  • elector (German prince)

    elector, prince of the Holy Roman Empire who had a right to participate in the election of the emperor (the German king). Beginning around 1273 and with the confirmation of the Golden Bull of 1356, there were seven electors: the archbishops of Trier, Mainz, and Cologne; the duke of Saxony; the

  • Elector Palatinate’s Men (English theatrical company)

    Admiral’s Men, a theatrical company in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. About 1576–79 they were known as Lord Howard’s Men, so called after their patron Charles Howard, 1st earl of Nottingham, 2nd Baron Howard of Effingham. In 1585, when Lord Howard became England’s lord high admiral, the company

  • Electoral Amendment Act (South Africa [2023])

    South Africa: The 2024 national election: …was largely due to the Electoral Amendment Act of 2023, which among its reforms included a provision for independent candidates to contest seats in the National Assembly and in provincial legislatures; previously, one had to be affiliated with a political party in order to do so. The allowance for independent…

  • electoral college (politics)

    India: Executive branch: …five-year renewable term by an electoral college consisting of the elected members of both houses of parliament and the elected members of the legislative assemblies of all the states. The vice president, chosen by an electoral college made up of only the two houses of parliament, presides over the Rajya…

  • Electoral College (ProCon debate)

    The Electoral College has been a continuous source of controversy since its creation by the Founding Fathers. Is it a fair way of electing the president of the United States, or should it be scrapped? The debate over its continued use resurfaced during the 2016 presidential election, when Donald

  • Electoral College (United States)

    Electoral College, the system by which the president and vice president of the United States are chosen. It was devised by the framers of the United States Constitution to provide a method of election that was feasible, desirable, and consistent with a republican form of government. For the results

  • Electoral Commission (United States [1877])

    Electoral Commission, in U.S. history, commission created by Congress in 1877 to resolve the disputed presidential election of 1876 between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel J. Tilden. For the first time since before the Civil War the Democrats had polled a majority of the popular

  • Electoral Dispute of 1876 (United States history)

    United States: The Ulysses S. Grant administrations, 1869–77: The circumstances surrounding the disputed election of 1876 strengthened Hayes’s intention to work with the Southern whites, even if it meant abandoning the few Radical regimes that remained in the South. In an election marked by widespread fraud and many irregularities, the Democratic candidate, Samuel J. Tilden, received the…

  • Electoral Hesse (former landgraviate, Germany)

    Hesse-Kassel, former landgraviate of Germany, formed in 1567 in the division of old Hesse. In 1567 Hesse was partitioned among four sons of Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous, Hesse-Kassel going to William IV the Wise. Hesse-Kassel was the largest, most important, and most northerly of the four Hesse

  • Electoral Prince of Brandenburg Society (German organization)

    Berlin: Education and science: The Academy of Sciences, founded as the Electoral Prince of Brandenburg Society in 1700, was the primary research organization of the GDR. The academy was phased out in 1991, and its research institutes were either integrated into existing research organizations and universities or dissolved; only its…

  • electoral system (political science)

    electoral system, Method and rules of counting votes to determine the outcome of elections. Winners may be determined by a plurality, a majority (more than 50% of the vote), an extraordinary majority (a percentage of the vote greater than 50%), or unanimity. Candidates for public office may be

  • Electra (typeface)

    typography: Mechanical composition: …the Linotype, two of which, Electra and Caledonia, have had wide use in American bookmaking. In the U.S., unlike England and the Continent, printers have relied far more upon Linotype than Monotype for book composition.

  • Electra (daughter of Atlas and Pleione)

    Pleiades: …and the Oceanid Pleione: Maia, Electra, Taygete, Celaeno, Alcyone, Sterope, and Merope. They all had children by gods (except Merope, who married Sisyphus).

  • Electra (daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra)

    Electra, in Greek legend, the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who saved the life of her young brother Orestes by sending him away when their father was murdered. When he later returned, she helped him to slay their mother and their mother’s lover, Aegisthus. Electra then married Orestes’

  • Electra (aircraft)

    Lockheed Martin Corporation: Lockheed Corporation: …the company delivered its first Electra, a twin-engine, all-metal airliner whose sales brought the business to profitability.

  • Electra (astronomy)

    Pleiades: (Alcyone, Maia, Electra, Merope, Taygete, Celaeno, and Sterope, names now assigned to individual stars), daughters of Atlas and Pleione, were changed into the stars. The heliacal (near dawn) rising of the Pleiades in spring of the Northern Hemisphere has marked from ancient times the opening of seafaring…

  • Electra (work by Euripides)

    Euripides: Electra: The title character of Electra (c. 418 bc; Greek Ēlektra) and her brother Orestes murder their mother, Clytemnestra, in retribution for her murder of their father, Agamemnon. Electra herself is portrayed as a frustrated and resentful woman who finally lures her mother to her…

  • Electra (work by Sophocles)

    Sophocles: Electra: As in Aeschylus’s Libation Bearers, the action in Electra (Greek: Ēlektra) follows the return of Orestes to kill his mother, Clytemnestra, and her lover Aegisthus in retribution for their murder of Orestes’ father, Agamemnon. In this play, however, the main focus is on Orestes’…

  • Electra complex (psychology)

    Oedipus complex: …mother; its female analogue, the Electra complex, is named for another mythological figure, who helped slay her mother.

  • electret (physics)

    electret, material that retains its electric polarization after being subjected to a strong electric field. The positive charge within the material becomes permanently displaced in the direction of the field, and the negative charge becomes permanently displaced in the direction opposite to the

  • electret condenser microphone (electroacoustic device)

    electromechanical transducer: Types of transducers: …type of microphone is the electret condenser microphone, in which the plates are given a permanent electrical charge. When a sound wave causes the charged diaphragm plate to vibrate, the voltage across the plates changes, creating a signal that can be amplified and transmitted to the recording device. An amplifier…

  • electric action (musical instrument)

    keyboard instrument: Stop and key mechanisms: As early as 1860, electric action was used experimentally, and it came into wide use at the end of the 19th century. Direct electric action, in which an electromagnet pulls the pallet open, is sometimes used, but a combination of electric and pneumatic mechanism is more general. In this…

  • Electric and Musical Industries (British corporation)

    the Beatles: Legacy: …2010 that the financially troubled EMI was soliciting buyers for its Abbey Road Studios, where the Beatles made the great majority of their recordings, the British Department for Culture, Media, and Sport declared the recording complex a historic landmark. EMI subsequently announced that it would retain ownership of the iconic…

  • electric arc (physics)

    electric arc, continuous, high-density electric current between two separated conductors in a gas or vapour with a relatively low potential difference, or voltage, across the conductors. The high-intensity light and heat of arcs are utilized in welding, in carbon-arc lamps and arc furnaces that

  • electric arc furnace (metallurgy)

    arc furnace, type of electric furnace (q.v.) in which heat is generated by an arc between carbon electrodes above the surface of the material (commonly a metal) being

  • electric automobile (vehicle)

    electric car, battery-powered motor vehicle, originating in the late 1880s and used for private passenger, truck, and bus transportation. Through the early period of the automotive industry until about 1920, electric cars were competitive with petroleum-fueled cars, particularly as luxury cars for

  • electric bass (musical instrument)

    bass, electrically amplified stringed musical instrument that has typically four to six heavy strings and is the lowest pitched type of guitar. The bass is further distinguished by its relatively long neck and scale length (the distance between the nut and the bridge); the latter ranges from 34 to

  • electric battery (electronics)

    battery, in electricity and electrochemistry, any of a class of devices that convert chemical energy directly into electrical energy. Although the term battery, in strict usage, designates an assembly of two or more galvanic cells capable of such energy conversion, it is commonly applied to a

  • Electric Boat Company (American corporation)

    General Dynamics Corp.: The original company, the Electric Boat Company, was founded in 1899 and built the Holland, the first submarine purchased by the U.S. Navy, in 1900. Electric Boat continued to build submarines and surface ships, and in 1954 it launched the Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine. The firm was…

  • electric buoy (flotation device)

    lighthouse: Structure and operation: Modern electric buoy lights range in power from a few hundred candelas up to the region of 1,000 candelas, giving ranges of 8 nautical miles (15 km) or so. The lighting equipment consists of a drum lens, usually made of plastic and between 4 and 12…

  • electric capacitor (electronics)

    capacitor, device for storing electrical energy, consisting of two conductors in close proximity and insulated from each other. A simple example of such a storage device is the parallel-plate capacitor. If positive charges with total charge +Q are deposited on one of the conductors and an equal

  • electric car (vehicle)

    electric car, battery-powered motor vehicle, originating in the late 1880s and used for private passenger, truck, and bus transportation. Through the early period of the automotive industry until about 1920, electric cars were competitive with petroleum-fueled cars, particularly as luxury cars for

  • electric catfish (fish)

    electric catfish, any of about 18 widely distributed freshwater catfish species native to tropical Africa belonging to two genera (Malapterurus and Paradoxoglanis) of the family Malapteruridae. The best known of this group is M. electricus, a thickset fish with six mouth barbels and a single fin

  • electric chair (capital punishment)

    electrocution, method of execution in which the condemned person is subjected to a heavy charge of electric current. Once the most widely used method of execution in the United States, electrocution was largely supplanted by lethal injection in the late 20th and early 21st centuries and is now used

  • electric charge (physics)

    electric charge, basic property of matter carried by some elementary particles that governs how the particles are affected by an electric or magnetic field. Electric charge, which can be positive or negative, occurs in discrete natural units and is neither created nor destroyed. Electric charges

  • electric circuit (electronics)

    electric circuit, path for transmitting electric current. An electric circuit includes a device that gives energy to the charged particles constituting the current, such as a battery or a generator; devices that use current, such as lamps, electric motors, or computers; and the connecting wires or

  • Electric City (South Carolina, United States)

    Anderson, city, seat (1826) of Anderson county, northwestern South Carolina, U.S., in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was founded in 1826 on what had been Cherokee Indian land. Named for a local Revolutionary War hero, General Robert Anderson, it has been called the Electric City

  • Electric City and Other Stories (short stories by Grace)

    Patricia Grace: Another short-story collection, Electric City, and Other Stories (1987), followed.

  • electric clock (instrument)

    clock: Electric clocks: Electric currents can be used to replace the weight or spring as a source of power and as a means of signaling time indications from a central master clock to a wide range of distant indicating dials. Invented in 1840, the first battery…

  • Electric Company, The (American television show)

    Joan Ganz Cooney: long-running Sesame Street and The Electric Company and eventually serving as president (1970–88), chair and CEO (1988–90), and chair of the executive committee (1990–2020). In 2007 the Sesame Group created the Joan Ganz Cooney Center to explore the use of digital media in children’s education. Ganz was inducted into…

  • electric condenser (electronics)

    capacitor, device for storing electrical energy, consisting of two conductors in close proximity and insulated from each other. A simple example of such a storage device is the parallel-plate capacitor. If positive charges with total charge +Q are deposited on one of the conductors and an equal

  • electric connector (electronics)

    materials science: Electric connections: The performance of today’s electronic systems (and photonic systems as well) is limited significantly by interconnection technology, in which components and subsystems are linked by conductors and connectors. Currently, very fine gold or copper wiring, as thin as 30 micrometres, is used to carry…

  • electric current (physics)

    electric current, any movement of electric charge carriers, such as subatomic charged particles (e.g., electrons having negative charge, protons having positive charge), ions (atoms that have lost or gained one or more electrons), or holes (electron deficiencies that may be thought of as positive

  • electric current density (physics)

    electromagnetism: Effects of varying electric fields: …the total flux of the current density J through any surface surrounded by the closed path. In Figure 6A, the closed path is labeled P, and a surface S1 is surrounded by path P. All the current density through S1 lies within the conducting wire. The total flux of the…

  • electric dipole (chemistry and physics)

    electric dipole, pair of equal and opposite electric charges the centres of which are not coincident. An atom in which the centre of the negative cloud of electrons has been shifted slightly away from the nucleus by an external electric field constitutes an induced electric dipole. When the

  • electric dipole moment (physics)

    liquid: Molecular structure and charge distribution: …tendency to rotate in an electric or magnetic field) and is therefore called polar. The dipole moment (μ) is defined as the product of the magnitude of the charge, e, and the distance separating the positive and negative charges, l: μ = el. Electrical charge is measured in electrostatic units…

  • electric discharge lamp (instrument)

    electric discharge lamp, lighting device consisting of a transparent container within which a gas is energized by an applied voltage and thereby made to glow. The French astronomer Jean Picard observed (1675) a faint glow in the tube of a mercury barometer when it was agitated, but the cause of the

  • electric discharge tube (measurement)

    ionization energy: …is usually measured in an electric discharge tube in which a fast-moving electron generated by an electric current collides with a gaseous atom of the element, causing it to eject one of its electrons. (Chemists typically use joules, while physicists use electron volts.) For a hydrogen atom, composed of an…

  • electric displacement (physics)

    electric displacement, auxiliary electric field or electric vector that represents that aspect of an electric field associated solely with the presence of separated free electric charges, purposely excluding the contribution of any electric charges bound together in neutral atoms or molecules. If

  • electric drill (tool)

    hand tool: Power tools: …popular power tools are the electric drill and the electric circular saw. Like its manual counterpart, the electric drill rotates a tool bit, but the circular saw has no manual prototype. Jigsaws, sabre, and reciprocating saws have familiar blades, as do electric screwdrivers, but many power tools are contemporary creations…

  • electric eel (fish genus)

    electric eel, (genus Electrophorus), any of three species of elongated South American knifefishes that produce powerful electric shocks to stun prey, usually other fish. All three species—the electric eel (Electrophorus electricus), Vari’s electric eel (E. varii), and Volta’s electric eel (E.

  • electric eye (electronics)

    photoelectric cell, an electron tube with a photosensitive cathode that emits electrons when illuminated and an anode for collecting the emitted electrons. Various cathode materials are sensitive to specific spectral regions, such as ultraviolet, infrared, or visible light. The voltage between the

  • electric field (physics)

    electric field, an electric property associated with each point in space when charge is present in any form. The magnitude and direction of the electric field are expressed by the value of E, called electric field strength or electric field intensity or simply the electric field. Knowledge of the

  • electric field intensity (physics)

    principles of physical science: Fields: electric field strength due to q1 at a distance r from q1 and is designated by E; it is clearly a vector parallel to r. At every point in space E takes a different value, determined by r, and the complete specification of E(r)—that is,…

  • electric field strength (physics)

    principles of physical science: Fields: electric field strength due to q1 at a distance r from q1 and is designated by E; it is clearly a vector parallel to r. At every point in space E takes a different value, determined by r, and the complete specification of E(r)—that is,…