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  • Gaurī Tal (fort, Bhind, India)
    ...and brassware manufacture are the major industries. It was the seat of the Bhadwriyā Cauhān Rājputs until it fell in the 18th century. The town has an old fort on a lake, Gaurī Tal, in which stands the Vyankateshwar Temple. Constituted a municipality in 1902, Bhind has several colleges affiliated with Jiwaji University....
  • Gaurinath Singh (Assamese historian)
    Conflict among the princes gradually weakened the central administration until 1786, when the ruling prince, Gaurinath Singh, sought aid from Calcutta (Kolkata), which by that time had become the capital of British India. A British army officer, sent by the British governor-general in India, restored peace and subsequently was recalled, in spite of the protests of the Ahom king. Internal strife......
  • Gause, G. F. (Russian biologist)
    (after G.F. Gause, a Soviet biologist, and J. Grinnell, an American naturalist, who first clearly established it), statement that in competition between species that seek the same ecological niche, one species survives while the other expires under a given set of environmental conditions. The result is that each species occupies a distinct niche....
  • Gause’s hypothesis (biology)
    (after G.F. Gause, a Soviet biologist, and J. Grinnell, an American naturalist, who first clearly established it), statement that in competition between species that seek the same ecological niche, one species survives while the other expires under a given set of environmental conditions. The result is that each species occupies a distinct niche....
  • Gause’s principle (biology)
    (after G.F. Gause, a Soviet biologist, and J. Grinnell, an American naturalist, who first clearly established it), statement that in competition between species that seek the same ecological niche, one species survives while the other expires under a given set of environmental conditions. The result is that each species occupies a distinct niche....
  • gauss (unit of measurement)
    unit of magnetic induction in the centimetre-gram-second system of physical units. One gauss corresponds to the magnetic flux density that will induce an electromotive force of one abvolt (10-8 volt) in each linear centimetre of a wire moving laterally at one centimetre per second at right angles to a magnetic flux. One gauss corresponds to 10-4 tesla (T), the International ...
  • Gauss, Carl Friedrich (German mathematician)
    German mathematician, generally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time for his contributions to number theory, geometry, probability theory, geodesy, planetary astronomy, the theory of functions, and potential theory (including electromagnetism)....
  • Gauss elimination (mathematics)
    in linear and multilinear algebra, a process for finding the solutions of a system of simultaneous linear equations by first solving one of the equations for one variable (in terms of all the others) and then substituting this expression into the remaining equations. The result is a new system in which the number of equations and variables is one less than in the original system. The same procedur...
  • Gauss, Johann Friedrich Carl (German mathematician)
    German mathematician, generally regarded as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time for his contributions to number theory, geometry, probability theory, geodesy, planetary astronomy, the theory of functions, and potential theory (including electromagnetism)....
  • Gaussberg, Mount (mountain, Antarctica)
    ...government, Drygalski’s party landed on Antarctica at about 90° E, in the area now known as Wilhelm II Coast. Trapped in the pack ice, they were forced to winter about 50 miles (80 km) east of Gaussberg, an ice-free volcanic peak that Drygalski named and that was a notable discovery. The results of the venture were published in 20 volumes of scientific reports, Deutsche......
  • Gaussian (computer program)
    ...the development in the 1960s of increasingly powerful computers that could perform such calculations opened up new opportunities in the field. In the late 1960s Pople designed a computer program, Gaussian, that could perform quantum-mechanical calculations to provide quick and accurate theoretical estimates of the properties of molecules and of their behaviour in chemical reactions. Gaussian......
  • Gaussian curvature (geometry)
    ...of surfaces created by the 18th- and 19th-century German mathematician and astronomer Carl Friedrich Gauss, often called the founder of modern mathematics, a theory that aimed to investigate the curved surfaces of three-dimensional (Euclidean) spaces with exclusive regard to their own inner dimensions and no consideration of their being imbedded in a three-dimensional space....
  • Gaussian curve (mathematics)
    ...the average of the square of the displacement in the x-direction. This formula for probability “density” allows P to be plotted against x. The graph is the familiar bell-shaped Gaussian “normal” curve that typically arises when the random variable is the sum of many independent, statistically identical random variables, in this case the many litt...
  • Gaussian distribution (statistics)
    the most common distribution function for independent, randomly generated variables. Its familiar bell-shaped curve is ubiquitous in statistical reports, from survey analysis and quality control to resource allocation....
  • Gaussian elimination (mathematics)
    in linear and multilinear algebra, a process for finding the solutions of a system of simultaneous linear equations by first solving one of the equations for one variable (in terms of all the others) and then substituting this expression into the remaining equations. The result is a new system in which the number of equations and variables is one less than in the original system. The same procedur...
  • Gaussian error curve (mathematics)
    ...the average of the square of the displacement in the x-direction. This formula for probability “density” allows P to be plotted against x. The graph is the familiar bell-shaped Gaussian “normal” curve that typically arises when the random variable is the sum of many independent, statistically identical random variables, in this case the many litt...
  • Gaussian integer (mathematics)
    ...led to the factorization properties of numbers of the type a + ib (a and b integers and i = −1), sometimes called Gaussian integers. In doing so, Gauss not only used complex numbers to solve a problem involving ordinary integers, a fact remarkable in itself, but he also opened the way to the detailed.....
  • Gauss’s law (fluxes)
    either of two statements describing electric and magnetic fluxes. Gauss’s law for electricity states that the electric flux across any closed surface is proportional to the net electric charge enclosed by the surface. The law implies that isolated electric charges exist and that like charges repel one another while unlike charges attract. Gauss’s law for magnetism states that the ma...
  • Gauss’s theorem (mathematics)
    Now the linear momentum principle may be applied to an arbitrary finite body. Using the expression for Tj above and the divergence theorem of multivariable calculus, which states that integrals over the area of a closed surface S, with integrand ni f (x), may be rewritten as integrals over the volume V......
  • Gauss’s theorem (fluxes)
    either of two statements describing electric and magnetic fluxes. Gauss’s law for electricity states that the electric flux across any closed surface is proportional to the net electric charge enclosed by the surface. The law implies that isolated electric charges exist and that like charges repel one another while unlike charges attract. Gauss’s law for magnetism states that the ma...
  • Gautama (Indian philosopher)
    The logical period of Indian thought began with the Kusanas (1st–2nd centuries). Gautama (author of the Nyāya-sūtras; probably flourished at the beginning of the Christian Era) and his 5th-century commentator Vātsyāyana established the foundations of the Nyāya as a school almost exclusively preoccupied with logical and epistemological issues. The......
  • Gautama Buddha (founder of Buddhism)
    the founder of Buddhism, one of the major religions and philosophical systems of southern and eastern Asia. Buddha is one of the many epithets of a teacher who lived in northern India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries before the Common Era....
  • Gautamīputra Śātakarṇi (Sātavāhana ruler)
    ...first stage of this conflict is represented by Kṣatrapa Nahapāna’s penetration into the Nāsik and other areas of the western Deccan. Sātavāhana power was revived by Gautamīputra Śātakarṇi (reigned c. ad 106–130), the greatest ruler of the family. His conquests ranged over a vast territorial expanse...
  • Gauteng (province, South Africa)
    province, northeastern South Africa. It consists of the cities of Pretoria, Johannesburg, Germiston, and Vereeniging and their surrounding metropolitan areas in the eastern part of the Witwatersrand region. Gauteng is the smallest South African province. It is bordered by the provinces of Limpopo on the north, Mpumalanga on the east, Free State on the south, and North-West on the west. Until 1994 ...
  • Gauthey, Emiland-Marie (French engineer)
    French engineer, best known for his construction of the Charolais Canal, or Canal du Centre, which united the Loire and Saône rivers in France, thus providing a water route from the Loire to the Rhône River....
  • Gauthier de Més en Loherains (French poet)
    French poet and priest who is usually credited with the authorship of a treatise about the universe, L’Image du monde (c. 1246; “The Mirror of the World”; also called Mappemonde), based on the medieval Latin text Imago mundi by Honorius Inclusus....
  • Gautier d’Arras (French author)
    author of early French romances. He lacked the skill and profundity of his contemporary Chrétien de Troyes, but his work, emphasizing human action and its psychological foundations, exercised an important influence on the genre known as roman d’aventure (“romance of adventure”)....
  • Gautier de Coincy (French author)
    ...par personnages (“Miracles of Our Lady with Dramatic Characters”), a collection of 40 miracles, partly based on a nondramatic compilation by Gautier de Coincy. These miracles probably were performed by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild....
  • Gautier de Metz (French poet)
    French poet and priest who is usually credited with the authorship of a treatise about the universe, L’Image du monde (c. 1246; “The Mirror of the World”; also called Mappemonde), based on the medieval Latin text Imago mundi by Honorius Inclusus....
  • Gautier, Émile-Théodore-Léon (French critic)
    literary historian who revived an interest in early French literature with his translation and critical discussion of the Chanson de Roland (1872) and with his research on the chansons de geste....
  • Gautier, Hubert (French engineer)
    French engineer and scientist, author of the first book on bridge building....
  • Gautier, Léon (French critic)
    literary historian who revived an interest in early French literature with his translation and critical discussion of the Chanson de Roland (1872) and with his research on the chansons de geste....
  • Gautier, Théophile (French author)
    poet, novelist, critic, and journalist whose influence was strongly felt in the period of changing sensibilities in French literature—from the early Romantic period to the aestheticism and naturalism of the end of the 19th century....
  • Gautsch von Frankenthurn, Paul, Freiherr (prime minister of Austria)
    statesman who served three times as Austrian prime minister....
  • Gauvin, Lise (Canadian author)
    ...Cracks), and Jacques Brault’s Agonie (1984; Death-Watch) all have elements of fictional diaries. Reworking Montesquieu’s Persian Letters (1721), Lise Gauvin used in Lettres d’une autre (1984; Letters from an Other) a Persian narrator who comments naively and honestly on Quebec society. Michel Trem...
  • Gauvreau, Claude (Canadian poet and playwright)
    ...of artists known as Les Automatistes, repudiated Quebec’s Jansenist past in the revolutionary manifesto Refus global (1948; Total Refusal). Poet and playwright Claude Gauvreau, one of the signatories of the manifesto, transposed the group’s principles to the written word, while poet and engraver Roland Giguère began writing poetry inspi...
  • gauze (fabric)
    light, open-weave fabric made of cotton when used for surgical dressings and of silk and other fibres when used for dress trimming. The name is derived from that of the Palestinian city of Gaza, where the fabric is thought to have originated. It is made either by a plain weave or by a leno weave....
  • gauze weave (textiles)
    Gauze weaving is an open weave made by twisting adjacent warps together. It is usually made by the leno, or doup, weaving process, in which a doup attachment, a thin hairpin-like needle attached to two healds, is used, and the adjacent warp yarns cross each other between picks. Since the crossed warps firmly lock each weft in place, gauze weaves are often used for sheer fabrics made of smooth......
  • Gavarni, Paul (French artist)
    French lithographer and painter whose work is enjoyable for its polished wit, cultured observation, and the panorama it presents of the life of his time. However, his work lacks the power of his great contemporary Honoré Daumier....
  • Gavarnie (France)
    mountain village and valley on the approach to the natural amphitheatre known as the Cirque de Gavarnie, in Hautes-Pyrénées département, Midi-Pyrénées région, southwestern France. Gavarnie lies in the central Pyrenees, on the French side of the Franco-Spanish frontier. The village, at an elevation of 4,452 feet (1,357 m) i...
  • Gavaskar, Sunil Manohar (Indian cricket player)
    mountain village and valley on the approach to the natural amphitheatre known as the Cirque de Gavarnie, in Hautes-Pyrénées département, Midi-Pyrénées région, southwestern France. Gavarnie lies in the central Pyrenees, on the French side of the Franco-Spanish frontier. The village, at an elevation of 4,452 feet (1,357 m) i...
  • Gavāter, Khalīj-e (bay, Arabian Sea)
    inlet of the Arabian Sea indenting the sandy Makran coast at the Iran–Pakistan border. It is about 20 miles (32 km) long and 10 miles (16 km) wide. The Dashtīārī River flows into it from the northwest, and the Dasht from the northeast. The town of Gwādar, Pak., lies on the Arabian Sea coast about 30 miles (48 km) to the east of Gwādar Bay....
  • Gavazzeni, Gianandrea (Italian composer and conductor)
    Italian composer and conductor who was best known for his nearly 50 years of conducting opera at La Scala in Milan (b. July 25, 1909--d. Feb. 5, 1996)....
  • Gavazzi, Alessandro (Italian religious reformer)
    reformer in church and politics during the Risorgimento (Italian unification) who inveighed against the neglect of social problems and Italian unity by the papacy....
  • Gaveston, Piers, Earl of Cornwall (English noble)
    favourite of the English king Edward II. The king’s inordinate love for him made him rapacious and arrogant and led to his murder by jealous barons....
  • Gavia (bird)
    any of five species of diving birds constituting the genus Gavia, family Gaviidae. Loons were formerly included, along with the grebes, to which they bear a superficial resemblance, in the order Colymbiformes, but they are considered to constitute their own separate order. Loons range in length from 60 to 90 cm (2 to 3 feet). Characte...
  • Gavia adamsii
    ...Parents also hoot or “kwuuk” to chicks that may have strayed too far away. Parents often swim with the young on their backs. The common loon’s counterpart across Eurasia is the similar white- (or yellow-) billed diver (G. adamsii)....
  • Gavia arctica (bird)
    ...and internal air sacs. (Young loons, however, are buoyant and pop up like corks from their first attempts at dives.) Loons are generally found singly or in pairs, but some species, especially the Arctic loon, or black-throated diver (G. arctica), winter or migrate in flocks. The voice is distinctive, including guttural sounds and the mournful, eerie wailing cries that in North America......
  • Gavia immer (bird)
    The common loon, or great northern diver (G. immer), is the most abundant loon in North America, and its haunting voice, heard in summer on northern wooded lakes, is considered a symbol of the wilderness. Because of its mournful songs, the Ojibwa considered the loon an omen of death, and the Cree saw it as the spirit of a warrior denied entry to heaven. Common loons make a variety of......
  • Gavia stellata (bird)
    ...makes walking awkward. Loons have thick plumage that is mainly black or gray above and white below. During the breeding season the dorsal plumage is patterned with white markings, except in the red-throated loon (Gavia stellata), which during the summer is distinguished by a reddish brown throat patch. In winter the red-throated loon develops white speckling on the back, while the......
  • gavial (reptile species)
    (Gavialis gangeticus), an exceptionally long and narrow-snouted crocodilian classified as the sole species in the separate family Gavialidae (order Crocodilia). The gavial inhabits the rivers of northern India and Nepal. Like other crocodilians, it reproduces by means of hard-shelled eggs laid in nests built by the female. It is distinguished by its long, very slender, and sharp-toothed ja...
  • Gavialidae (reptile family)
    ...crocodiles)3 genera and 14 species; teeth of upper and lower jaws form one interdigitating row when mouth is closed.Family Gavialidae (gavial)1 genus and 1 species; extremely long snout, more than 22 teeth in each jaw; nasal bones separated from......
  • Gavialis gangeticus (reptile species)
    (Gavialis gangeticus), an exceptionally long and narrow-snouted crocodilian classified as the sole species in the separate family Gavialidae (order Crocodilia). The gavial inhabits the rivers of northern India and Nepal. Like other crocodilians, it reproduces by means of hard-shelled eggs laid in nests built by the female. It is distinguished by its long, very slender, and sharp-toothed ja...
  • Gaviidae (bird family)
    any of five species of diving birds constituting the genus Gavia, family Gaviidae. Loons were formerly included, along with the grebes, to which they bear a superficial resemblance, in the order Colymbiformes, but they are considered to constitute their own separate order. Loons range in length from 60 to 90 cm (2 to 3 feet). Characteristics include a strong tapered bill, small pointed......
  • Gaviiformes (bird order)
    ...and stout; stance upright; feathers short and dense, molted in patches; length 35–115 cm (14–45 inches); fossil forms to 180 cm (71 inches).Order Gaviiformes (loons)5 species in 1 family of the Northern Hemisphere; foot-propelled diving birds with webbed feet and pointed bills; lengt...
  • Gavilan, Kid (Cuban boxer)
    Cuban professional boxer and world welterweight champion. Gavilan was known for his “bolo punch,” which was a combination of a hook and an uppercut. He said he developed the punch by cutting sugarcane during his youth in Cuba....
  • Gavin, James Maurice (United States general)
    U.S. Army commander known as “the jumping general” because he parachuted with combat troops during World War II....
  • “gaviota, La” (novel by Caballero)
    Poverty helped persuade Cecilia to publish her writings. Her first and best-known novel, La gaviota (1849; The Seagull), was an immediate success with the public. No other Spanish book of the 19th century obtained such instant and universal recognition. It describes the career of a fisherman’s daughter who marries a German physician, deserts...
  • Gaviria Trujillo, César (president of Colombia)
    ...policies. Despite threats of terrorism, however, about half of the population voted in the peaceful May election, which was won by former finance minister and hard-line anti-drug candidate César Gaviria Trujillo of the Liberal Party....
  • Gävle (Sweden)
    town and port, capital of Gävleborg län (county), east-central Sweden, on an inlet of the Gulf of Bothnia, northwest of Stockholm. Although first mentioned in documents in the 8th century, it was not chartered until 1446. Despite several devastating fires, it grew from a fishing village into the main centre and export city for Norrland and the northern part...
  • Gävleborg (county, Sweden)
    län (county), east-central Sweden, on the shores of the Gulf of Bothnia. It is composed of the traditional landskap (province) of Gästrikland, most of Hälsingland, and a small part of Dalarna. Although lo...
  • gavotte (dance)
    lively peasants’ kissing dance that became fashionable at the 17th- and 18th-century courts of France and England. Supposedly originated by the natives of Gap (Gavots) in the southeastern French province of Dauphiné, the gavotte was danced in royal ballrooms as a round with skipping steps adapted from the branle. Couples concluded improvised duet performances by kissing their partne...
  • Gavras, Konstantin (French director)
    Greek-born naturalized French motion-picture director noted for films that have been both political arguments and entertainments (usually as mysteries or thrillers)....
  • Gavriʾel (archangel)
    in the Bible and the Qurʾān, one of the archangels. Gabriel was the heavenly messenger sent to Daniel to explain the vision of the ram and the he-goat and to communicate the prediction of the Seventy Weeks. He was also employed to announce the birth of John the Baptist to Zechariah and to announce the birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary. It is because he stood in the divine presence th...
  • Gavrilo (Serbian clergyman)
    patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church (1938–50), noted for his anti-Nazi stand and, later, for his limited accommodations with the Communists....
  • Gavrilovka (Kazakstan)
    city, southeastern Kazakhstan. It is situated on the left bank of the Karatal River and in the western foothills of the Dzungarian Alatau Range. It grew up on the site of Gavrilovka village, founded in the second half of the 19th century, and it developed particularly after the construction of a branch line from the Turk-Sib Railway in 1949. Food products, construction materials, and diverse light...
  • Gavronsky, Helen (South African politician)
    white South African legislator (1953–89), who was an outspoken advocate for the nonwhite majority....
  • Gavur Kalesi (ancient city, Turkey)
    ...in the protective embrace of a god is hardly less impressive than the symbolism of a huge dagger thrust into the rock before him. The rock reliefs of this period elsewhere in Anatolia—Sirkeli, Gâvur Kalesi, and Fraktin, for example—are mainly of archaeological interest. They are inferior in carving to contemporary reliefs and to those of the Iron Age, of which there is a fi...
  • Gawain (legendary knight)
    hero of Arthurian legend and romance. A nephew and loyal supporter of King Arthur, Gawain appeared in the earliest Arthurian literature as a model of knightly perfection, against whom all other knights were measured. In the 12th-century Historia regum Britanniae, by Geoffrey of Monmouth, Gawain (or Walgainus) was Arthur’s ambassador to Rome; his name (spelled “Galvaginus...
  • Gāwān, Maḥmūd (Bahmanī statesman)
    The most notable personality of the period was Maḥmūd Gāwān, who was a leading administrator during the reigns of Humāyūn and his son Aḥmad III and was vizier (chief minister) under Muḥammad III (reigned 1463–82). During Maḥmūd Gāwān’s ascendancy, the Bahmanī state achieved both its greatest si...
  • Gawhar Shād (queen of Persia)
    ...Herāt in Khorāsān (now in western Afghanistan). Particularly important were the library and the school of miniature painting that developed and flourished there. One of his wives, Gawhar Shād, worked with the Persian architect Qavam ud-Din in the planning and construction of a series of magnificent public buildings there....
  • Gawler (South Australia, Australia)
    town, South Australia, northeast of Adelaide. It lies at the confluence of the North and South Para rivers (which there form the Gawler River), at the western foot of the Mt. Lofty Ranges. Surveyed in 1839, it was named after George Gawler, governor and resident commissioner in South Australia (1838–41), and was proclaimed a municipality in 1857. Fast becoming a dormitory...
  • Gawler Block (mountain formation, Australia)
    In the far southwest, the Darling Range forms an upfaulted block underlain mainly by granite but capped by laterite, a reddish, iron-rich product of weathering rock. The Gawler block, in the southeast, is complex. There are crystalline and sandstone uplands in the east, sandstone plateaus in the northeast, and, in the centre and north, the rounded Gawler Ranges built of Precambrian volcanic......
  • Gawler, George (governor of South Australia, Australia)
    ...of Adelaide. It lies at the confluence of the North and South Para rivers (which there form the Gawler River), at the western foot of the Mt. Lofty Ranges. Surveyed in 1839, it was named after George Gawler, governor and resident commissioner in South Australia (1838–41), and was proclaimed a municipality in 1857. Fast becoming a dormitory town for Adelaide 25 miles (40 km) south, it......
  • Gawler Ranges (mountains, South Australia, Australia)
    mountains and hills in South Australia, extending 100 miles (160 km) east-west across the northern part of Eyre Peninsula, south of Lake Gairdner; they rise in the west as high as 1,550 feet (475 metres) at Mount Bluff. The ranges were first sighted by the English explorer Edward John Eyre in 1839 and named in honour of the colony’s governor, George Gawler. The semiarid s...
  • Gawra Period (archaeology)
    ...The site, which apparently was continuously occupied from the Halaf Period (c. 5050–c. 4300 bc) to about the middle of the 2nd millennium bc, gave its name to the Gawra Period (c. 3500–c. 2900) of northern Mesopotamia. Prior to the Gawra Period, however, the site seems to have been influenced by the Ubaid culture (c......
  • Gay and Lesbian Pride Week
    ...45 minutes and resumed on succeeding nights. Gay rights organizations proliferated in the United States in the succeeding years. “Stonewall” came to be commemorated annually in June by Gay and Lesbian Pride Week, not only in U.S. cities but in cities in several other countries....
  • Gay, Delphine (French writer)
    ...a literary leader of the Romantic movement in France. The Romantic poet Alphonse de Lamartine recognized his talents, and Hugo and Charles Sainte-Beuve treated him as a friend. Vigny and the writer Delphine Gay, the “muse of the country” as she was called—for her beauty as well as her literary talents—formed a striking couple before his marriage in February 1825 to L...
  • Gay Divorcee, The (film by Sandrich, 1934)
    ...and Frederic Hope for The Merry WidowScoring: Columbia Studio Music Department, Louis Silvers, head of department, for One Night of LoveSong: “The Continental” from The Gay Divorcée; music by Con Conrad, lyrics by Herb MagidsonHonorary Award: Shirley Temple...
  • Gay Games (sports)
    ...this stereotype, which has damaged efforts to increase wider participation and greater spectator interest, conventional feminine ideals have been stressed in the marketing of women’s sports. The Gay Games, established in 1980, were created to provide an opportunity for male and female gay athletes to compete openly and to counteract negative perceptions about homosexuals....
  • Gay Hussars, The (operetta by Kálmán)
    ...cabaret songs under a pseudonym.) His reputation as a composer of operettas was made by his first stage work, Tatárjárás (1908; The Gay Hussars). The strongly Hungarian tone of this piece succeeded in winning over Viennese audiences, and The Gay Hussars was performed throughout Europe and the......
  • Gay, Jean-Baptiste-Sylvère (French politician and historian)
    French politician, magistrate, and historian who, as leader of the government in 1828–29, alienated King Charles X with his moderate policy....
  • Gay, John (British author)
    English poet and dramatist, chiefly remembered as the author of The Beggar’s Opera, a work distinguished by good-humoured satire and technical assurance....
  • Gay, John (British biblical scholar and philosopher)
    Another strand of Utilitarian thought took the form of a theological ethics. John Gay, a biblical scholar and philosopher, held the will of God to be the criterion of virtue; but from God’s goodness he inferred that God willed that men promote human happiness....
  • gay liberation movement (sociology)
    civil-rights movement that advocates equal rights for gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals; seeks to eliminate sodomy laws barring homosexual acts between consenting adults; and calls for an end to discrimination against gay men and lesbians in employment, credit lending, housing, public accommodations, and other areas of life....
  • Gay, Marvin Pentz, Jr. (American singer and composer)
    American soul singer-songwriter-producer who, to a large extent, ushered in the era of artist-controlled popular music of the 1970s. Gaye’s father was a storefront preacher; his mother was a domestic worker. Gaye sang in his father’s Evangelical church in Washington, D.C., and became a member of a nationally known doo-wop group, the Moonglows, u...
  • Gay Men’s Health Crisis (political organization, United States)
    ...it was particularly prevalent in urban gay communities. As a result homosexuals were at the forefront of advocacy for research into the disease and support for its victims through groups such as Gay Men’s Health Crisis in New York City. Novelist and playwright Larry Kramer, who believed a more aggressive presence was needed, founded the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP), which beg...
  • Gay Pride Week
    ...45 minutes and resumed on succeeding nights. Gay rights organizations proliferated in the United States in the succeeding years. “Stonewall” came to be commemorated annually in June by Gay and Lesbian Pride Week, not only in U.S. cities but in cities in several other countries....
  • gay rights movement (sociology)
    civil-rights movement that advocates equal rights for gay men, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals; seeks to eliminate sodomy laws barring homosexual acts between consenting adults; and calls for an end to discrimination against gay men and lesbians in employment, credit lending, housing, public accommodations, and other areas of life....
  • “Gay Science, The“ (work by Nietzsche)
    In The Gay Science, Nietzsche proclaims thatit is still a metaphysical faith upon which our faith in knowledge rests—that even we knowers today, we godless anti-metaphysicians still take our fire from the flame lit by a faith that is thousands of years old, that Christian faith which was also the faith of Plato, that God is truth, that truth is......
  • Gay, Sophie (French author)
    French writer and grande dame who wrote romantic novels and plays about upper-class French society during the early 19th century....
  • Gay-Lussac, Joseph-Louis (French scientist)
    French chemist and physicist who pioneered investigations into the behaviour of gases, established new techniques for analysis, and made notable advances in applied chemistry....
  • Gay-Lussac’s law (physics)
    a statement that the volume occupied by a fixed amount of gas is directly proportional to its absolute temperature, if the pressure remains constant. This empirical relation was first suggested by the French physicist J.-A.-C. Charles about 1787 and was later placed on a sound empirical footing by the chemist Joseph-Louis Gay-Lussac. It is a special case of th...
  • Gay-Lussac’s law of combining volumes (physical science)
    ...one were not animated with the desire to discover laws, they would often escape the most enlightened attention.” Of the laws Gay-Lussac discovered, he remains best known for his law of the combining volumes of gases (1808). He had previously (1805) established that hydrogen and oxygen combine by volume in the ratio 2:1 to form water. Later experiments with boron trifluoride and ammonia.....
  • Gaya (India)
    city, south-central Bihār state, northeastern India. It lies along the Phalgu River, a tributary of the Ganges. With major rail, road, and air connections, Gayā is a major centre of commerce. The city lies near the junction of the Gangetic Plain and the Choṭa Nāgpur plateau and is notoriously hot in summer....
  • gayal (mammal)
    (Bos frontalis), one of the species of true cattle, belonging to the subfamily Bovinae (order Artiodactyla) and found in northeastern India and Myanmar (Burma). Considered a domestic form of the gaur, the gayal has larger dewlaps and thicker horns that extend outward without curving. Bulls stand 1.5 m (5 feet) at the shoulder and are blackish with white leg markings that...
  • Gayangos, Pascual de (Spanish author)
    Working with a superb personal library of perhaps 5,000 volumes and with the help of such overseas associates as Pascual de Gayangos, the Spanish aide who discovered manuscripts and rare books for him, Prescott made rigorous use of original sources. His critical use of historical evidence was such that he might well be called the first American scientific historian....
  • Gāyatrī mantra (Hindu prayer)
    ...and Tantric elements. If not shortened, the morning ceremonies consist of self-purification, bathing, prayers, and recitation of mantras, especially the Gayatri-mantra (Rigveda 3.62.10), a prayer for spiritual stimulation addressed to the Sun. The accompanying ritual includes (1) the application of marks on the forehead, characterizing the adherents......
  • Gaye, Marvin (American singer and composer)
    American soul singer-songwriter-producer who, to a large extent, ushered in the era of artist-controlled popular music of the 1970s. Gaye’s father was a storefront preacher; his mother was a domestic worker. Gaye sang in his father’s Evangelical church in Washington, D.C., and became a member of a nationally known doo-wop group, the Moonglows, u...
  • Gaykhatu (Mongol ruler)
    The pressure was increased beyond the economy’s endurance: the Il-Khanid government ran into fiscal difficulties. An experiment with paper currency, modeled on the Chinese money, failed under Gaykhatu (reigned 1291–95). Gaykhatu was followed briefly by Baydu (died 1295), who was supplanted by the greatest of the Il-Khans, Maḥmūd Ghāzān (1295–1304).....
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