city, eastern Turkey. It lies on the eastern shore of Lake Van at an altitude of about 5,750 feet (1,750 metres). The city lies in an oasis at the foot of a hill crowned by an ancient ruined citadel. A ruined stone building near the foot o...

fl. 1200s Italian merchants who made the first European attempt to reach Asia by sailing westward. In 1281 or 1291, more than two centuries before the historic first voyage of Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Genoese Vivaldi brothers ...

Vanillin Overview Vanillin is a white crystalline solid with a pleasant, sweet aroma, and a characteristic vanilla-like flavor. Chemically, it is the methyl ether of 4-hydroxybenzoic acid, a ring compound that contains the carboxyl (-COOH) ...

Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) was a leader of American science and engineering during and after World War II. He was instrumental in the development of the atomic bomb and the analogue computer, as well as an administrator of government scient...

country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, consisting of a chain of 13 principal and many smaller islands located about 500 miles (800 km) west of Fiji and 1,100 miles (1,770 km) east of Australia. The islands extend north-south for some 4...

city, southeastern Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. It is located on the left bank of the Ganges River and is one of the seven sacred cities of the Hindus. Vārānasi is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the ...

In algebra, a symbol (usually a letter) standing in for an unknown numerical value in an equation. Commonly used variables include &math.x; and &math.y; (real-number unknowns), &math.z; (complex-number unknowns), &math.t; (time), &math.r; ...

In 1696 Isaac Newton left Cambridge University to become Warden of the Mint. When he came home one afternoon, he learned of a problem set by Johann Bernoulli as a challenge to the "great mathematicians of the world." Since Newton and Gottf...

Twisted vein distended with blood. Varix also covers arteries and lymphatic vessels (&see; lymphatic system). Varicose veins occur mostly in the legs, when malfunctioning valves let blood pool in veins near the skin. Causes include heredit...

A weekly trade newspaper focusing on theater and film, Variety has been a bible of the entertainment industry since the turn of the century. Founded in 1905 by Sime Silverman, a former vaudeville critic for a New York newspaper, Variety's ...

Varisco, Bernardino(1850–1933) Bernardino Varisco, the Italian metaphysician, was born at Chiari (Brescia). It was only in the later part of his long life that he developed his philosophy, for he began as a teacher of science and his...

VARṆA AND JĀTI. The two separable but intertwined concepts of varṇa and jāti may be regarded as different levels of analysis of the Indian system of social structure called caste. While some scholars regard var&...

Varona Y Pera, Enrique Jos n Panamericana, 1960), Ch. 5....

The Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama (ca. 1460-1524) was the first to travel by sea from Portugal to India. The term "Da Gama epoch" is used to describe the era of European commercial and imperial expansion launched by his navigational e...

The vascular system is composed of a complex network of tubular vessels allowing blood to circulate around the body. It consists of arteries (carrying oxygenated blood from heart), veins (carrying the deoxygenated blood from the tissues to...

Any plant that has a specialized conducting system consisting mostly of phloem (food-conducting tissue) and xylem (water-conducting tissue), collectively called vascular tissue. Ferns, gymnosperms, and flowering plants are all vascular pla...

Vasculitis refers to a varied group of disorders which all share a common underlying problem of inflammation of a blood vessel or blood vessels. The inflammation may affect any size blood vessel, anywhere in the body. It may affect either ...

Vasodilators are medicines that act directly on muscles in blood vessel walls to make blood vessels widen (dilate). Vasodilators are used to treat high blood pressure (hypertension). By widening the arteries, these drugs allow blood to flo...

Vasquez, Gabriel(1549–1604) Gabriel Vasquez, the neo-Scholastic theologian, was born at Villascuela del Haro, Spain, and died at Alcalá. Educated in the Jesuit houses of study in Spain, he taught moral philosophy at Ocañ...

ecclesiastical state, seat of the Roman Catholic church, and an enclave in Rome, situated on the west bank of the Tiber River. Vatican City is the world's smallest fully independent nation-state. Its medieval and Renaissance walls form its...

Sebastien Vauban (1633-1707) served as France's foremost military engineer under Louis the XIV. A man of humble birth, Vauban's acumen in planning military fortifications and his direction of sieges against France's enemies helped the regi...

1952- New Zealand-American mathematician who received his Ph.D. in Switzerland in 1979. He taught mathematics at many prestigious universities, including the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Pennsylvania, and the ...

Vaz Ferreira, Carlos(1872 n a Vaz Ferreira (Montevideo: Barreiro y Ramos, 1961)....

The Vienna Definition Language (VDL) is a language for defining programming languages. Specifically, VDL uses operational semantics to create a formal definition of a language. In operational semantics, programs are modeled using an abstra...

Three of the four fundamental forces play a significant role in the interactions of elementary particles. A common feature that electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force share is that the gauge particles that mediate these for...