Skip this Advertisement

A-Z Browse

  • aldrin (chemical compound)
    one of the several isomers (compounds with the same composition but different structures) of hexachlorohexahydrodimethanonaphthalene, a chlorinated hydrocarbon formerly used as an insecticide. Aldrin was first prepared in the late 1940s and is manufactured by the reaction of hexachlorocyclopentadiene with bicycloheptadiene (both derived from hydrocarbons obtai...
  • Aldrin, Buzz (American astronaut)
    astronaut who set a record for extravehicular activity and was the second man to set foot on the Moon....
  • Aldrin, Edwin Eugene, Jr. (American astronaut)
    astronaut who set a record for extravehicular activity and was the second man to set foot on the Moon....
  • Aldrovanda (plant genus)
    The family Droseraceae comprises four genera (Aldrovanda, Dionaea, Drosera, and Drosophyllum) and about 115 species, nearly all of which belong to the genus Drosera, of the sundew family. Aldrovanda are floating aquatics sometimes grown in aquaria as curiosities. Dionaea, represented by a single species, D. muscipula, is the well-known, quick-acting......
  • Aldrovandi, Ulisse (Italian naturalist)
    Renaissance naturalist and physician noted for his systematic and accurate observations of animals, plants, and minerals....
  • ale
    fermented malt beverage, full-bodied and somewhat bitter, with strong flavour and aroma of hops. Popular in England, where the term is now synonymous with beer, ale was until the late 17th century an unhopped brew of yeast, water, and malt, beer being the same brew with hops added. Modern ale, usually brewed with water rich in calcium sulfat...
  • ale cost (herb)
    (Tanacetum balsamita), aromatic herb of the aster family (Asteracae) with yellow, button-shaped flowers. Its bitter, slightly lemony leaves may be used fresh in salads and fresh or dried as a flavouring, particularly for meats, poultry, and English ale. The dried leaves are also used as a tea and in potpourri....
  • ale gallon (measurement)
    ...being 18.5 inches wide throughout and 8 inches deep.” Similarly, in 1707 the wine gallon was defined as a round measure with an even bottom and containing 231 cubic inches; however, the ale gallon was retained at 282 cubic inches. There was also a corn gallon and an older, slightly smaller wine gallon. There were many other attempts made at standardization besides these, but it was......
  • Alea, Titón (Cuban filmmaker)
    ("TITÓN"), Cuban filmmaker (b. Dec. 11, 1928, Havana, Cuba--d. April 16, 1996, Havana), worked within the stringencies of revolutionary Cuba to satirize bureaucracy. Regarded as the nation’s finest director, he stimulated the Cuban film industry as one of the leaders of the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos, which was founded in 1959 when Cuba adopted soci...
  • Alea, Tomás Gutiérrez (Cuban filmmaker)
    ("TITÓN"), Cuban filmmaker (b. Dec. 11, 1928, Havana, Cuba--d. April 16, 1996, Havana), worked within the stringencies of revolutionary Cuba to satirize bureaucracy. Regarded as the nation’s finest director, he stimulated the Cuban film industry as one of the leaders of the Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industria Cinematográficos, which was founded in 1959 when Cuba adopted soci...
  • Aleander, Hieronymus (Italian cardinal)
    cardinal and Humanist who was an important opponent of the Lutheran Reformation....
  • Aleandro, Girolamo (Italian cardinal)
    cardinal and Humanist who was an important opponent of the Lutheran Reformation....
  • Aleardi, Aleardo, Conte (Italian poet and politician)
    poet, patriot, and political figure, an archetype of the 19th-century Italian poet-patriots. His love poems and passionate diatribes against the Austrian government brought him renown....
  • Aleardi, Gaetano (Italian poet and politician)
    poet, patriot, and political figure, an archetype of the 19th-century Italian poet-patriots. His love poems and passionate diatribes against the Austrian government brought him renown....
  • aleatory music
    (aleatory from Latin alea, “dice”), 20th-century music in which chance or indeterminate elements are left for the performer to realize. The term is a loose one, describing compositions with strictly demarcated areas for improvisation according to specific directions and also unstructured pieces consisting of vague directives, such as “Play...
  • Alechinsky, Pierre (Belgian artist)
    ...exhibition was held in 1951 at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Liège, Belgium. COBRA included among its members Karel Appel, Corneille (Corneille Guillaume Beverloo), Constant (Nieuwenhuis), Pierre Alechinsky, Lucebert (Lubertus Jacobus Swaanswijk), and Jean Atlan. Influenced by poetry, film, folk art, children’s art, and primitive art, the semiabstract canvases by these artists disp...
  • Alecsandri, Vasile (Romanian author)
    lyric poet and dramatist, the first collector of Romanian popular songs to emphasize their aesthetic values and a leader of the movement for the union of the Romanian principalities....
  • Alectis crinitis (fish)
    The African pompano, or threadfish, also of the family Carangidae, is Alectis crinitis of the Atlantic and eastern Pacific oceans. It is about 90 cm long and, especially when young, has very long, threadlike rays extending from the dorsal and anal fins....
  • Alectoria (lichen)
    ...prevail among forms with highly developed thalli. Lecanora and Lecidea, for example, have individual algal cells with as many as five haustoria that may extend to the cell centre. Alectoria and Cladonia have haustoria that do not penetrate far beyond the algal cell wall. A few phycobionts, such as Coccomyxa and Stichococcus, which are not penetrated by....
  • Alectoride (lichen)
    ...prevail among forms with highly developed thalli. Lecanora and Lecidea, for example, have individual algal cells with as many as five haustoria that may extend to the cell centre. Alectoria and Cladonia have haustoria that do not penetrate far beyond the algal cell wall. A few phycobionts, such as Coccomyxa and Stichococcus, which are not penetrated by....
  • Alectoris chukar (bird)
    popular small game bird, a species of partridge....
  • Alectura lathami (bird)
    ...the tongue. The mound is maintained within a degree or two of 33 °C (91 °F) throughout the period of several months that there are eggs in it. Observations of one species of brush turkey, Alectura lathami, indicate that the frequent opening of the mound may be as important for ventilation as for temperature control....
  • alef-null (mathematics)
    ...known as the “continuum hypothesis” was consistent with the other axioms of ZF, and whether it was independent of them. The continuum hypothesis states that between ℵ0 (aleph-null; the “smallest” infinite cardinality, on the order of the integers) and its power set, ℵ1 (a cardinality usually identified with the continuum of points ...
  • alef-one (mathematics)
    ...ℵ0 (aleph-null; the “smallest” infinite cardinality, on the order of the integers) and its power set, ℵ1 (a cardinality usually identified with the continuum of points on a real number line), as well as between other integral alephs, there is no intermediate cardinality—no ℵ1.5, so to speak. This is the first of Hilbert...
  • Alegre, Caetano da Costa (African poet)
    first significant black African poet writing in Portuguese to deal with the theme of blackness. He was the literary ancestor to the later, more vehement modern poets....
  • Alegria breve (novel by Ferreira)
    ...novel, Finisterra (1978; “Land’s End”). Vergílio Ferreira, in a transition to existentialism, added a metaphysical dimension to the novel of social concern with Alegria breve (1965; “Brief Joy”) and explored the evanescent moods of the past and the idea of death in Para sempre (1983; “Forever”)....
  • Alegría, Ciro (Peruvian author)
    Peruvian novelist who wrote about the lives of the Peruvian Indians....
  • Alegría, Claribel (Nicaraguan author)
    poet, essayist, and journalist who was a major voice in the literature of contemporary Central America. Noted for her testimonio (testament) concerning the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua, she was best known in the United States for the bilingual edition of her volume of poetry, Flores del volcán/Flowers from the Volcano (1982), translated by the poet Carolyn Forché....
  • alehouse (drinking establishment)
    The hostelries of Roman England were derived from the cauponae and the tabernae of Rome itself. These were followed by alehouses, which were run by women (alewives) and marked by a broom stuck out above the door. The English inns of the Middle Ages were sanctuaries of wayfaring strangers, cutthroats, thieves, and political malcontents. The tavern, the predecessor of the modern......
  • Aleichem, Sholem (Yiddish author)
    popular Yiddish classical author....
  • Aleijadinho (Brazilian sculptor and architect)
    prolific and influential Brazilian sculptor and architect whose Rococo statuary and religious articles complement the dramatic sobriety of his churches....
  • Aleixandre, Vicente (Spanish poet)
    Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of 1927, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1977. He was strongly influenced by the Surrealist technique of poetic composition....
  • Alejandro Selkirk, Isla (island, South Pacific Ocean)
    ...km) west of and administratively part of Chile. They consist of the 36-square-mile (93-square-km) Isla Más a Tierra (Nearer Land Island, also called Isla Robinson Crusoe); the 33-square-mile Isla Más Afuera (Farther Out Island, also called Isla Alejandro Selkirk), 100 miles to the west; and an islet, Isla Santa Clara, southwest of Isla Más a Tierra. The islands are volcanic...
  • Alekan, Henri (French cinematographer)
    French cinematographer (b. Feb. 10, 1909, Paris, France—d. June 15, 2001, Auxerre, France), was one of the most accomplished filmmakers of the 20th century. After working for a time as a puppeteer, Alekan broke into the film industry as an assistant camera operator in 1927. His career was interrupted by the German occupation of France during World War II. After the war Alekan became a direc...
  • Alekhin, Alexander (Russian-French chess player)
    world champion chess player from 1927 to 1935 and from 1937 until his death, noted for using a great variety of attacks....
  • Alekhine, Alexander (Russian-French chess player)
    world champion chess player from 1927 to 1935 and from 1937 until his death, noted for using a great variety of attacks....
  • Aleksandr Aleksandrovich (emperor of Russia)
    emperor of Russia from 1881 to 1894, opponent of representative government, and supporter of Russian nationalism. He adopted programs, based on the concepts of Orthodoxy, autocracy, and narodnost (a belief in the Russian people), that included the Russification of national minorities in the Russian Empire as well as persecution of the non-Orthodox religious groups....
  • Aleksandr Nevsky (prince of Russia)
    prince of Novgorod (1236–52) and of Kiev (1246–52) and grand prince of Vladimir (1252–63), who halted the eastward drive of the Germans and Swedes but collaborated with the Mongols in imposing their rule on Russia. By defeating a Swedish invasion force at the confluence of the Rivers Izhora and Neva (1240), he won the name Nevsky, “of the Neva....
  • Aleksandr Nikolayevich (emperor of Russia)
    emperor of Russia (1855–81). His liberal education and distress at the outcome of the Crimean War, which had demonstrated Russia’s backwardness, inspired him toward a great program of domestic reforms, the most important being the emancipation (1861) of the serfs. A period of repression after 1866 led to a resurgence of revolutionary terrorism and to Alexander...
  • Aleksandr Pavlovich (emperor of Russia)
    emperor of Russia (1801–25), who alternately fought and befriended Napoleon I during the Napoleonic Wars but who ultimately (1813–15) helped form the coalition that defeated the emperor of the French. He took part in the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), drove for the establishment of the Holy Alliance (1815), and took part in the conferences that followed....
  • Aleksandr Yaroslavich (prince of Russia)
    prince of Novgorod (1236–52) and of Kiev (1246–52) and grand prince of Vladimir (1252–63), who halted the eastward drive of the Germans and Swedes but collaborated with the Mongols in imposing their rule on Russia. By defeating a Swedish invasion force at the confluence of the Rivers Izhora and Neva (1240), he won the name Nevsky, “of the Neva....
  • Aleksandra Fyodorovna (empress consort of Russia)
    consort of the Russian emperor Nicholas II. Her misrule while the emperor was commanding the Russian forces during World War I precipitated the collapse of the imperial government in March 1917....
  • Aleksandravičius, Jonas (Lithuanian poet)
    poet whose lyrics are considered among the best in Lithuanian literature and who was the first modern Lithuanian poet to turn to personal expression....
  • Aleksandriya (Ukraine)
    city, south-central Ukraine, on the Inhulets River. Founded as Usivka in the early 18th century, it was renamed Becheyu (also Becha, or Bechka) in the 1750s, Oleksandriysk in 1784, and Oleksandriya shortly thereafter. The nearby lignite (brown coal) field was used beginning in the 1950s to power local rayon-fibre engineering plants and other industries. Pop. (2001) 93,357; (2005...
  • Aleksandrov, Pavel Sergeevich (Soviet mathematician)
    Russian mathematician who made important contributions to topology....
  • Aleksándrov, Pavel Sergeyevich (Soviet mathematician)
    Russian mathematician who made important contributions to topology....
  • Aleksandrov, Todor (Macedonian leader)
    Under Todor Aleksandrov, however, IMRO reestablished itself as an influential factor in Balkan politics, particularly by participating in the overthrow and assassination of Bulgaria’s prime minister Aleksandŭr Stamboliyski (June 1923), who had tried to ease relations with other Balkan states. IMRO then obtained control of the Petrich (i.e., the Macedonian) district of Bulgaria...
  • Aleksandrovka (Russia)
    city, Amur oblast (region), far eastern Russia. Situated in the Zeya-Bureya Plain and on the Tom River, it was founded in 1860 and became a city in 1926. It is a rail junction and an agricultural centre in a wheat-producing area with food-processing industries. Pop. (2005 est.) 76,621....
  • Aleksandrovsk (Ukraine)
    city, southeastern Ukraine, on the Dnieper River just below its former rapids. In 1770 the fortress of Oleksandrivsk was established to ensure government control over the Zaporozhian Cossacks, whose headquarters were on nearby Khortytsya (Khortitsa) Island. The settlement became a town in 1806, and with the coming of the railroad in the 1870s it became an impo...
  • Aleksandrovsk-Grushevsky (Russia)
    city, Rostov oblast (province), western Russia. It lies along the upper Grushevka River, 47 miles (75 km) northeast of Rostov-na-Donu. Shakhty developed in the early 19th century as a coal-mining centre and became a city in 1881. It is now the main city of the eastern end of the Donets Basin coalfield and is surrounded by many pits and their waste heaps. (The city’s name means ...
  • Aleksandrovsk-Sakhalinsky (Russia)
    city, Sakhalin oblast (province), far-eastern Russia, on the western coast of Sakhalin Island. It was founded in 1881 as a centre for penal settlements. In 1890 the writer Anton Chekhov lived there while gathering material about convict life for his book Ostrov Sakhalin (“Sakhalin Island”). It b...
  • Aleksandrovsky (Russia)
    city, administrative centre of Novosibirsk oblast (region) and the chief city of western Siberia, in south-central Russia. It lies along the Ob River where the latter is crossed by the Trans-Siberian Railroad. It developed after the village of Krivoshchekovo on the left bank was chosen as the crossing point of the Ob for the Trans-Siberi...
  • Alekseev, Mikhail Vasilyevich (Russian general)
    commander in chief of the Russian Army for two months in World War I and a military and political leader of the White (anti-Bolshevik) forces in the Russian Civil War that followed the Russian Revolution of October 1917....
  • Alekseevskoe (settlement, Asia)
    ...Afanasyevskaya in the 2nd and 1st millennia bc. Although found to the southwest of Krasnoyarsk, it is more frequently encountered in western Siberia and Kazakhstan. The settlement and cemetery of Alekseevskoe (present Tenlyk), some 400 miles (600 kilometres) south of Yekaterinburg (formerly Sverdlovsk), is especially important, because its earth houses were designed for permanent ...
  • Aleksei I (patriarch of Moscow)
    Russian Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia (1945–70) whose allegiance to the Soviet government helped him strengthen the structure of the church within an officially atheistic country....
  • Aleksei II (patriarch of Moscow)
    Russian Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia from 1990....
  • Aleksei Nikolayevich (prince of Russia [1904-18])
    only son of Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia, and the tsarina Alexandra. He was the first male heir born to a reigning tsar since the 17th century....
  • Aleksei, Saint (metropolitan of Moscow)
    metropolitan of Moscow from 1354 to 1378 and the first representative of the Russian Orthodox church to take a truly active role in governing Russia....
  • Aleksey I (patriarch of Moscow)
    Russian Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia (1945–70) whose allegiance to the Soviet government helped him strengthen the structure of the church within an officially atheistic country....
  • Aleksey II (patriarch of Moscow)
    Russian Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia from 1990....
  • Aleksey Mikhaylovich (tsar of Russia)
    tsar of Russia from 1645 to 1676....
  • Aleksey Nikolayevich (prince of Russia [1904-18])
    only son of Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia, and the tsarina Alexandra. He was the first male heir born to a reigning tsar since the 17th century....
  • Aleksey Petrovich (prince of Russia [1690-1718])
    heir to the throne of Russia, who was accused of trying to overthrow his father, Peter I the Great....
  • Aleksey, Saint (metropolitan of Moscow)
    metropolitan of Moscow from 1354 to 1378 and the first representative of the Russian Orthodox church to take a truly active role in governing Russia....
  • Alekseyev, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich (French animator)
    Russian-born French filmmaker who invented the pinscreen method of animation with his collaborator (later his wife), the animator Claire Parker (1910–81)....
  • Alekseyev Circle (Russian dramatic group)
    ...was the daughter of a French actress. Stanislavsky first appeared on his parents’ amateur stage at age 14 and subsequently joined the dramatic group that was organized by his family and called the Alekseyev Circle. Although initially an awkward performer, Stanislavsky obsessively worked on his shortcomings of voice, diction, and body movement. His thoroughness and his preoccupation with ...
  • Alekseyev, Konstantin Sergeyevich (Russian actor and director)
    Russian actor, director, and producer, founder of the Moscow Art Theatre (opened 1898). He is best known for developing the system or theory of acting called the Stanislavsky system, or Stanislavsky method....
  • Alekseyev, Mikhail Vasilyevich (Russian general)
    commander in chief of the Russian Army for two months in World War I and a military and political leader of the White (anti-Bolshevik) forces in the Russian Civil War that followed the Russian Revolution of October 1917....
  • Alekseyev, Vasily Ivanovich (Soviet athlete)
    Soviet superheavyweight weightlifter who between 1970 and 1978 set 80 world records and won two Olympic gold medals....
  • Alekseyevna, Yekaterina (empress of Russia)
    peasant woman of Baltic (probably Lithuanian) birth who became the second wife of Peter I the Great (reigned 1682–1725) and empress of Russia (1725–27)....
  • Alekseyevsk (Russia)
    city and centre of Svobodny rayon (sector), Amur oblast (region), southeastern Russia. It is situated on the right bank of the Zeya River, which is a tributary of the Amur River, and on the Trans-Siberian Railroad. Svobodny was founded in 1912. It is now an important transportation centre, having railway shops and serv...
  • Aleksin (Russia)
    city, Tula oblast (province), western Russia, on the Oka River, 40 miles (65 km) northwest of Tula city. Aleksin, first documented in 1236, was at first a fortress, then a river port. The decline of river trade adversely affected the city, but since the October Revolution (1917) it has become a significant industrial centre, with engi...
  • Alemán Lacayo, Arnoldo
    ...party campaigned for expanded social services and civil liberties, national unity, and, in contrast to its historical stance, reconciliation with the United States. He lost to the AL’s candidate, Arnoldo Alemán Lacayo, a former mayor of Managua and allegedly a sympathizer of former dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle. During Alemán’s tenure (1997–2002) Nicaragua...
  • Alemán, Mateo (Spanish author)
    novelist, a master stylist best known for his early, highly popular picaresque novel, Guzmán de Alfarache....
  • Alemán, Miguel (president of Mexico)
    president of Mexico from 1946 to 1952....
  • Alemanni (people)
    a Germanic people first mentioned in connection with the Roman attack on them in ad 213. In the following decades, their pressure on the Roman provinces became severe; they occupied the Agri Decumates c. 260, and late in the 5th century they expanded into Alsace and northern Switzerland, establishing the German language in those regions. In 496 they were conquered by Clovis an...
  • Alemannic (language)
    Alemannic dialects, which developed in the southwestern part of the Germanic speech area, differ considerably in sound system and grammar from standard High German. These dialects are spoken in Switzerland, western Austria, Swabia, and Liechtenstein and in the Alsace region of France. Yiddish, the language of the Ashkenazic Jews (Jews whose ancestors lived in Germany in the European Middle......
  • Alembert, Jean Le Rond d’ (French mathematician and philosopher)
    French mathematician, philosopher, and writer, who achieved fame as a mathematician and scientist before acquiring a considerable reputation as a contributor to and editor of the famous Encyclopédie....
  • Alemtejo (historical province, Portugal)
    region and historical province of south-central Portugal. It lies southeast of the Tagus (Tejo) River and is bounded on the east by the Spanish frontier and on the southwest by the Atlantic Ocean. It is an almost featureless tableland of less than 650 feet (200 m) in elevation in the south and southwest that ascends to higher elevations in the far south and northeast. Although A...
  • Alen, William Van (American architect)
    office building in New York City, designed by William Van Alen and often cited as the epitome of the Art Deco skyscraper. Its sunburst-patterned stainless steel spire remains one of the most striking features of the Manhattan skyline. Built between 1926 and 1930, the Chrysler Building was briefly the tallest in the world, at 1,046 feet (318.8 metres). It claimed this honour in November......
  • Alencar, José de (Brazilian author)
    journalist, novelist, and playwright whose novel O Guarani (1857; “The Guarani Indian”) initiated the vogue of the Brazilian Indianista novel (romantic tales of indigenous life incorporating vocabulary of Amerindian origin referring to flora, fauna, and tribal customs). O Guarani, which was subsequently utilized as the libretto for an opera in Italian...
  • Alencar, José Martiniano de (Brazilian author)
    journalist, novelist, and playwright whose novel O Guarani (1857; “The Guarani Indian”) initiated the vogue of the Brazilian Indianista novel (romantic tales of indigenous life incorporating vocabulary of Amerindian origin referring to flora, fauna, and tribal customs). O Guarani, which was subsequently utilized as the libretto for an opera in Italian...
  • Alençon (France)
    town, Orne département, Basse-Normandie région, northwestern France. Alençon lies at the juncture of the Sarthe and Briante rivers, in the centre of a plain ringed by wooded hills. It is known for its tulle and lace (especially point d’Alençon...
  • Alençon, duc d’ (French duke)
    fourth and youngest son of Henry II of France and Catherine de Médicis; his three brothers—Francis II, Charles IX, and Henry III—were kings of France. But for his early death at age 30, he too would have been king....
  • Alençon, Jean, duc d’ (French duke)
    ...she wished to go to battle against the English and that she would have him crowned at Reims. On the Dauphin’s orders she was immediately interrogated by ecclesiastical authorities in the presence of Jean, duc d’Alençon, a relative of Charles, who showed himself well-disposed toward her. For three weeks she was further questioned at Poitiers by eminent theologians who were a...
  • Alençon lace (lace)
    needle lace made in the French city of Alençon, one of the centres designated by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, minister of finance under Louis XIV, for aid in his effort to make French laces financially and artistically competitive with imported laces. Venetian workers, experts in making point de Venise, were brought in to instruct the local needlewomen, who quickly learn...
  • Aleni, Giulio (Italian priest)
    Jesuit priest who was the first Christian missionary in the province of Kiangsi, China....
  • Alentejo (historical province, Portugal)
    region and historical province of south-central Portugal. It lies southeast of the Tagus (Tejo) River and is bounded on the east by the Spanish frontier and on the southwest by the Atlantic Ocean. It is an almost featureless tableland of less than 650 feet (200 m) in elevation in the south and southwest that ascends to higher elevations in the far south and northeast. Although A...
  • alentours tapestry (French tapestry style)
    ...François Boucher (1703–70), the outstanding artist-director of the 18th century. Boucher and Charles-Antoine Coypel (1694–1752), a Rococo painter, designed many of the popular alentours tapestries, in which the central subject, presented as a painting bordered by a frame simulating gilded wood, is eclipsed by the rich use of ornamental devices surrounding it. Boucher...
  • ʿalenu (Judaism)
    (Hebrew: “it is our duty”), the opening word of an extremely old Jewish prayer, which has been recited at the end of the three periods of daily prayer since the European Middle Ages. The first section of the ʿalenu is a prayer of thanks for having set Israel apart for the service of God; the second section, omitted by those who follow the Sephardic (Spanish) rite, expr...
  • Aleotti, Giovanni Battista (Italian architect)
    ...Baroque theatre at Parma, Italy, the prototype of the modern playhouse and the first surviving theatre with a permanent proscenium arch. Construction on the Teatro Farnese was begun in 1618 by Giovanni Battista Aleotti for Ranuccio I Farnese, and it officially opened in 1628. At one end of the large, rectangular wooden structure was a stage area designed for deep-perspective scenery and......
  • Aleph (religion)
    Japanese Buddhist sect founded in 1987 by Matsumoto Chizuo, known to his followers as Master Asahara Shoko. AUM came to public attention in 1995 when 12 people died and thousands were injured following the release of nerve gas into a Tokyo subway by several of the group’s top leaders. This action brought infamy and ...
  • Aleph and Other Stories, 1933–69, The (work by Borges)
    ...creation. In the next eight years he produced his best fantastic stories, those later collected in Ficciones (“Fictions”) and the volume of English translations titled The Aleph and Other Stories, 1933–69. During this time, he and another writer, Adolfo Bioy Casares, jointly wrote detective stories under the pseudonym H. Bustos Domecq (combining......
  • aleph-null (mathematics)
    ...known as the “continuum hypothesis” was consistent with the other axioms of ZF, and whether it was independent of them. The continuum hypothesis states that between ℵ0 (aleph-null; the “smallest” infinite cardinality, on the order of the integers) and its power set, ℵ1 (a cardinality usually identified with the continuum of points ...
  • aleph-one (mathematics)
    ...ℵ0 (aleph-null; the “smallest” infinite cardinality, on the order of the integers) and its power set, ℵ1 (a cardinality usually identified with the continuum of points on a real number line), as well as between other integral alephs, there is no intermediate cardinality—no ℵ1.5, so to speak. This is the first of Hilbert...
  • Alepisauridae
    either of two species of widely distributed, deepwater marine fish of the genus Alepisaurus (family Alepisauridae). Lancet fish are elongated and slender, with a long, very tall dorsal fin and a large mouth that is equipped with formidable fanglike teeth. The fish grow to a large size, attaining a maximum length of about 1.8 m (6 feet). Voracious and carnivorous, they feed on a variety of f...
  • Alepisaurus brevirostris
    ...of about 1.8 m (6 feet). Voracious and carnivorous, they feed on a variety of fish and invertebrates. The longnose lancet fish (A. ferox) is found in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The shortnose lancet fish (A. brevirostris) inhabits the Atlantic and south Pacific oceans....
  • Alepisaurus ferox
    ...with formidable fanglike teeth. The fish grow to a large size, attaining a maximum length of about 1.8 m (6 feet). Voracious and carnivorous, they feed on a variety of fish and invertebrates. The longnose lancet fish (A. ferox) is found in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The shortnose lancet fish (A. brevirostris) inhabits the Atlantic and south Pacific oceans....
  • Alepocephalidae (fish)
    any of several deep-sea fishes, family Alepocephalidae (order Salmoniformes), found in almost all oceans at depths up to 5,500 m (17,800 feet) or more. Slickheads are dark, soft, and herringlike; species vary greatly in structure, and a few possess light-producing organs. Some common features of the family are absence of a swim bladder, presence of a lateral line, and position of the dorsal fin fa...
  • Alepoudhelis, Odysseus (Greek poet)
    Greek poet and winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize for Literature....
Skip this Advertisement

Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.

If you think a reference to this article on "" will enhance your Web site, blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article, and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.

You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.

copy link

We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.

Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.

The Britannica Store
A-Z Browse

Image preview