…(in electrical engineering and electronics) the imaginary quantity equal to the square root of minus one…
…the SI unit of work or energy, equal to the work done by a force of one newton when its point of application moves one meter in the direction of action of the force, equivalent to one 3600th of a watt-hour…
…(1950-), US basketball player; full name Julius Winfield Erving; known as Dr. J. He played most of his career with the Philadelphia 76ers 1977–87. Basketball Hall of Fame (1993)…
…a declaration by a player intending to adjust the placing of a chessman without making a move with it…
…(in the Caribbean) the official start of carnival, at dawn on the Monday preceding Lent…
…the day (August 15) in 1945 on which Japan ceased fighting in World War II, or the day (September 2) when Japan formally surrendered…
…(1890–1960), English linguist; full name John Rupert Firth. Firth was noted for his contributions to linguistic semantics and prosodic phonology…
…(1935-), US race car driver; full name Anthony Joseph Foyt, Jr. He won the Indianapolis 500 four times 1961, 1964, 1967, 1977…
…(1871–1909), Irish playwright; full name Edmund John Millington Synge. His The Playboy of the Western World (1907) caused riots at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin, because of its explicit language and its implication that Irish peasants would condone a brutal murder…
…(1911–60), English philosopher; full name John Langshaw Austin. Notable works: Sense and Sensibilia and How to Do Things with Words (both 1962)…
…(1930–2009), British novelist and short-story writer; full name James Graham Ballard. Notable works: The Drowned World (1962), Crash (1973), and Empire of the Sun (1984)…
…(1940-), South African novelist; full name John Maxwell Coetzee. Notable works: In the Heart of the Country (1977), Life & Times of Michael K (1983), White Writing (1988), and Age of Iron (1990). Nobel Prize for Literature (2003)…
…(1896–1981), Scottish novelist; full name Archibald Joseph Cronin. His novels, including The Citadel (1937), often reflect his early experiences as a doctor…
…(1935–79), English novelist; full name James Gordon Farrell. Notable works: The Siege of Krishnapur (1973) and The Singapore Grip (1978)…
…(1904–79), US novelist; full name James Thomas Farrell. He is known for his trilogy about Studs Lonigan: Young Lonigan (1932), The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan (1934), and Judgment Day (1935)…
…(1892–1976), US industrialist; full name Jean Paul Getty. He made a fortune in the oil industry and was also a noted art collector. He founded the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California…
…(1837–1913), US financier, philanthropist, and art collector; full name John Pierpont Morgan. He created General Electric in 1891 and the US Steel Corporation in 1901. He bequeathed his large art collection to the Museum of Modern Art in New York City…
…(1965-), British writer; full name Joanne Kathleen Rowling. Her series of children’s books featuring the character Harry Potter began with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (1998)…
…(1947-), US football player and actor; full name Orenthal James Simpson. Following a successful career as a running back for the Buffalo Bills 1969–77 and the San Francisco 49ers 1978–79, he became a television sports commentator. He was arrested in 1994, accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson (1959–94) and Ronald Goldman (1968–94). He was acquitted after a lengthy, high-profile trial, but in a 1997 civil court, he was found liable for both wrongful deaths. In 2008 he was sentenced to at least 9 years in prison on separate charges of assault and kidnapping…
…(1910–89), English philosopher; full name Alfred Jules Ayer. He was an important proponent of logical positivism. Notable works: Language, Truth, and Logic (1936) and The Problem of Knowledge (1956)…
…(1895–1972), US government official; director of the FBI 1924–72; full name John Edgar Hoover. He reorganized the FBI into an efficient, scientific law-enforcement agency, but came under criticism for the organization’s role during the McCarthy era and for its reactionary political stance in the 1960s…
…(1893–1960), US writer; full name John Phillips Marquand. He created the character Mr. Moto, a Japanese detective featured in several of his novels, such as Last Laugh, Mr. Moto (1942). His other works include The Late George Apley (1937), Point of No Return (1949), and Women and Thomas Harrow (1958)…
…(1895–1937), English aeronautical engineer; full name Reginald Joseph Mitchell. He designed the Spitfire fighter aircraft…
…(1904–79), US humorist and writer; full name Sidney Joseph Perelman. In the early 1930s he worked in Hollywood as a scriptwriter and from 1934 his name is linked with The New Yorker magazine, for which he wrote most of his short stories and sketches…
…(1860–1948), US army officer; full name John Joseph Pershing; known as Black Jack. His early military years included active duty in Cuba 1889, the Philippines 1899–1903, and Mexico 1916–17 before he became commander in chief of the American Expeditionary Force 1917–19 in World War I. His Meuse-Argonne offensive 1918 led to the final collapse of the German Army. He served as US Army chief of staff 1921–24…
…(1894–1984), English novelist, playwright, and critic; full name John Boynton Priestley. Notable works: The Good Companions (novel, 1929), Time and the Conways (play, 1937), and An Inspector Calls (play, 1947)…
… 1st Baron (1888–1972), English industrialist and movie executive; full name Joseph Arthur Rank. In 1941, he founded the Rank Organization, a movie production and distribution company that acquired control of the leading British studios and movie theater chains in the 1940s and 1950s…
…(1919–2010), US novelist and short-story writer; full name Jerome David Salinger. He is best known for his novel of adolescence The Catcher in the Rye (1951). Other notable works: Franny and Zooey (1961) and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenter (1963)…
…(1775–1851), English painter; full name Joseph Mallord William Turner. He painted landscapes and stormy seascapes and became increasingly concerned with depicting the power of light with primary colors, often arranged in a swirling vortex. Notable works: Rain, Steam, Speed (1844) and The Fighting Téméraire (1838)…
…(1860–1937), Scottish dramatist and novelist; full name Sir James Matthew Barrie. He wrote Peter Pan (1904), a fantasy for children about a boy who would not grow up. Other notable plays include The Admirable Crichton (1902)…
…(1892–1964), Scottish mathematical biologist; full name John Burdon Sanderson Haldane. As well as contributing to the development of population genetics, Haldane became well known as a popularizer of science and as an outspoken Marxist…
…(1900–1985), US businessman; full name John Willard Marriott. He founded the Marriott hotel chain, which began in 1927 with a Hot Shoppe in Washington, DC…
…(1892–1973), British novelist and literary scholar, born in South Africa; full name John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. He is known for The Hobbit (1937) and The Lord of the Rings (1954–55), fantasy adventures set in Middle Earth…
…(b.1949), Welsh rugby union player; full name John Peter Rhys Williams. One of the leading full backs of the 1970s, Williams played for his country and for the British Lions…
…(1904–67), US theoretical physicist; full name Julius Robert Oppenheimer. He was director of the laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, during the development of the first atom bomb, but opposed the development of the hydrogen bomb after World War II…
…(1950-), US basketball player; full name Julius Winfield Erving; known as Dr. J. He played most of his career with the Philadelphia 76ers 1977–87. Basketball Hall of Fame (1993)…
…the tall tree that produces the walnut, with compound leaves and valuable ornamental timber that is used chiefly in cabinetmaking and gunstocks…
…the tall tree that produces the walnut, with compound leaves and valuable ornamental timber that is used chiefly in cabinetmaking and gunstocks…
…(1685–1750), German composer. An exceptional and prolific baroque composer, his compositions range from violin concertos, suites, and the six Brandenburg Concertos (1720–21) to clavier works and sacred cantatas. Large-scale choral works include The Passion according to St. John (1723), The Passion according to St. Matthew (1729), and the Mass in B minor (1733–38). Three of his sons were also well-known composers: J. C. Bach (1735–82), known as the London Bach, full name Johann Christian Bach; J. C. F. Bach (1732–95), known as the Bückeburg Bach, full name Johann Christoph Friedrich Bach; and W. F. Bach (1710–84), known as the Halle Bach, full name Wilhelm Friedemann Bach…
…(1806–73), English philosopher and economist. He is best known for his political and moral works, especially On Liberty (1859), which argued for the importance of individuality, and Utilitarianism (1861), which extensively developed Bentham’s theory…
…(1854–1941), Scottish anthropologist. In The Golden Bough (1890–1915) he proposed an evolutionary theory of the development of human thought, from the magical and religious to the scientific…
…an evergreen shrub or small tree that bears berrylike cones, widely distributed throughout Eurasia and North America. Many kinds have aromatic cones or foliage…
