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Early method of converting cast iron to wrought iron, superseding the bloomery process after blast furnaces became widespread. Pieces of cast iron (see pig iron) were placed on a finery hearth, on which charcoal was being burned with a plentiful supply of air, so that c...

Lumps and fines...

...and piquancy to many culinary dishes, particularly fish, chicken, stews, sauces, omelets, cheeses, vegetables, tomatoes, and pickles. Tarragon is a common ingredient in seasoning blends, such as fines herbes. The fresh leaves are used in salads, and vinegar in which fresh tarragon has been steeped is a distinctive condiment....

any of three species of medium-sized lobe-footed, semiaquatic birds found in tropical regions around the world. They constitute a family that superficially resembles cormorants but are actually members of the crane order (Gruiformes). Finfoots are named for the lobes on their feet, which enable them both to swim well and t...

...the financial support of the rhetorician Hugh Blair, he published Fragments of Ancient Poetry…Translated from the Gallic or Erse Language (1760), Fingal (1762), and Temora (1763), claiming that much of their content was based on a 3rd-century Gaelic poet, Ossian. No Gaelic manuscripts date back beyond the 10th......

county in the province of Leinster, east-central Ireland. The county of Fingal was created in 1994 when County Dublin was split administratively into three separate councils. Area 176 square miles (455 square km). Pop. (2002) 196,413....

most famous of the caves in the basalt southwest coast of Staffa, the Inner Hebrides island group, western Scotland. It is 227 ft (69 m) long and about 40 ft (12 m) wide. Its roof arch reaches 66 ft above mean sea level, and the floor is covered by water never less than ...

...(1830–32; also known as Fingal’s Cave). Between 1830 and 1832 he traveled in Germany, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland and, in 1832, returned to London, where he conducted the Hebrides Overture and where he published the first book of the piano music he called Lieder ohne Worte (Songs Without Words), completed in Venice in 1830. Gradually Mendelssohn,......

ancient and medieval measure of 18yard, or 4 12inches (11.4 cm), used primarily to measure lengths of cloth. The finger derives ultimately from the digitus, the smallest of the basic Roman linear measures. From the digitus came the English nail, which eq...

...side, just as the diameter and curvature of an ellipse vary in directions at right angles to each other (hence the name). The joint between the second metacarpal and the first phalanx of the second finger is a good example. It allows the finger to flex and extend, to swing toward or away from its neighbouring finger, and to swing forward with a slight amount of rotation....

...after left-hemisphere damage, making it appear that the left hemisphere is largely responsible for collating somatosensory information into a special awareness of the body called the body image. Finger agnosia is a condition in which the individual does not appear to “know” which finger is which and is unable to indicate which one the examiner touches without the aid of vision.......

The first of these projects led to the appearance of three complete numeration systems, one of which was the finger arithmetic used by the scribes and treasury officials. This ancient arithmetic system, which became known throughout the East and Europe, employed mental arithmetic and a system of storing intermediate results on the fingers as an aid to memory. (Its use of unit fractions recalls......

American comic strip superhero created in 1939 by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. Batman appeared in comic books, comic strips, and graphic novels (such as Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns [1987] and Alan Moore’s Batman: The Killing Joke [1988]); on television in a tongue-in-cheek “camp” live-action seri...

...together with a frame drum, were sounded in religious rites and at secular dances. Forked cymbals known as crotala traveled from Egypt to Greece and Rome, and finger cymbals were introduced from the East, chiefly for dancers, a pair being attached to the thumb and middle finger of each hand....

...or palm, side of the wrist, the tunnel is enclosed by a tight band of fibrous tissue called the transverse carpal ligament. Through the tunnel run the median nerve, several blood vessels, and nine finger flexor tendons. The tendons are rodlike structures that transmit forces from muscles in the forearm to the fingers and enable the fingers to close, as when making a fist....

...fly their Bf-109 fighters in loose, line-abreast Rotten, or pairs, about 200 yards apart. Two of these Rotten formed a Schwarm, and this flexible formation—called “finger-four” by English-speaking airmen—was eventually adopted by all the major air forces in World War II. An exception was the U.S. Navy, whose fighter pilots developed a system call...

group of narrow, glacial lakes in west-central New York state, U.S. They lie in north-south valleys between the vicinity of Syracuse (east) and Geneseo (west). The region, which embraces more than a dozen state parks, is noted for its scenery, many resorts, fruits (especially grapes), and vegetables. It co...

Of the many possibilities of transferring liquid dyestuffs onto a plane, two have become particularly significant for art drawing: brush and pen. To be sure, finger painting, as found in prehistoric cave paintings, has occasionally been practiced since the late Renaissance and increasingly so in more recent times. For drawing as such, however, the method is irrelevant. Similarly, the use of......

Still another minor puppet form is the finger puppet, in which the manipulator’s two fingers constitute the limbs of a puppet, whose body is attached over the manipulator’s hand. An even simpler finger puppet is a small, hollow figure that fits over a single finger....

...it first bounces on the server’s own court and then, passing over the net, bounces on the opponent’s court. In serving, no spin may be imparted to the ball by the fingers. This was not always so. Finger spin, especially in the United States, reached a stage where the experts could produce untakable services and the game became farcical. Finger spin was universally banned in 1937....

...of the violin, its austere purity of line and curve being both the challenge and the sign manual of the master craftsman. The front face of the neck is flat, and to this is glued the curved fingerboard, which projects beyond the shoulder and over the belly toward the bridge. At the top of the neck is the nut, which is grooved to take the strings, keeping them correctly spaced apart and......

any of the half dozen species of fishes in the family Monodactylidae (order Perciformes), found from the Atlantic coast of western Africa to the Indo-Pacific region and usually inhabiting inshore or estuarine waters. They are extremely compressed and deep-bodied and are often greater in height than in length. Because of this...

...of the acoustic characteristics of flutes and reeds, only a few pitches are available on instruments lacking finger holes. Thus, instruments with finger holes are known in most cultures, as are fingering systems. Typical of such systems in the West is the six-hole system, so named because the six finger holes of the Baroque transverse flute and oboe—there were no thumbholes—were.....

impression made by the papillary ridges on the ends of the fingers and thumbs. Fingerprints afford an infallible means of personal identification, because the ridge arrangement on every finger of every human being is unique and does not alter with growth or age. Fingerprints serve to reveal an individual...

...the carbon-carbon double bond. The many bending vibrations of carbon-hydrogen bonds cause the complicated absorption pattern ranging from about 7 to 25 μみゅーm. This area of IR spectra is called the fingerprint region, because the absorption pattern is highly complex but unique to each organic structure. The stretching vibrations for both the carbon-carbon and carbon-oxygen double bonds are.....

...his clashes with local civic leaders—led Finley to move the team to Oakland in 1968. Propelled by such young greats as outfielder Reggie Jackson and pitchers Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue, and Rollie Fingers, the A’s quickly turned the franchise’s fortunes around in their new home, winning three consecutive World Series titles from 1972 to 1974. The small-market A’s lost...

people living in Eastern Cape province of South Africa and traditionally speaking a Xhosa language (one of the Bantu languages...

...Berlusconi in 2010, eroding his once-unassailable mastery of a conservative political establishment that he had helped create. Early in the year, former deputy prime minister and Berlusconi ally Gianfranco Fini, now president of the country’s lower house, the Chamber of Deputies, excoriated the septuagenarian billionaire’s “self-involved” governing style and his petu...

Argentine-born Surrealist artist who created erotically tinged paintings, posters, and sets and was internationally known for designing the sets and costumes for such venues as the Paris Opéra, the Comédie-Française, and Milan’s La Scala (b. Aug. 30, 1908--d. Jan. 18, 1996)....

in architecture, the decorative upper termination of a pinnacle, gable end, buttress, canopy, or spire. In the Romanesque and Gothic styles, it usually consists of a vertical, pointed central element surrounded by four outcurving leaves or scrolls. When the form it decorates has crockets (small, independent, sharply projecting ornaments, usua...

...for many films, notably The Wizard of Oz (1939). Blacklisted from films for his political views, Harburg returned to Broadway to write musicals, notably Finian’s Rainbow (1947; with Burton Lane). Among his best-known songs are April in Paris, It’s Only a Paper Moon, and ...

Renaissance goldsmith, engraver, draftsman, and designer, known for his work in niello, a type of decorative metalwork, and as one of the first major Italian printmakers....

Renaissance goldsmith, engraver, draftsman, and designer, known for his work in niello, a type of decorative metalwork, and as one of the first major Italian printmakers....

...in warm regions or when large tanks are used, may remain somewhat cloudy for long periods. Removal of the suspended material during aging is called clarification. The major procedures involved are fining, filtration, centrifugation, refrigeration, ion exchange, and heating....

...had been made directly in a bloomery. The arrival of blast furnaces, however, opened up an alternative manufacturing route; this involved converting cast iron to wrought iron by a process known as fining. Pieces of cast iron were placed on a finery hearth, on which charcoal was being burned with a plentiful supply of air, so that carbon in the iron was removed by oxidation, leaving semisolid......

...but, especially as the glass becomes more viscous, small bubbles are trapped in the melt in such numbers that they threaten the quality of the final product. They are removed in a process called fining, which takes place mostly in another section of the furnace known as the conditioning chamber (see Figure 8). From the melting chamber, the molten glass is allowed to pass through a throat in......

...Life Is Beautiful), which also won for best foreign movie. Italian films are increasingly coproductions of cinema and television companies. The Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI) and Fininvest are presently Italy’s largest film producers, accounting for more than half of the film output, which number several hundred films and television productions each year. Rome’s......

...period both by Sevilla painters and by Herrera the Younger and Madrid painters, Valdés Leal produced such works as the Vanitas (1660), the Finis Gloriae Mundi and the Triumph of Death (1660 and 1672), and Jesus Disputing with the Doctors (1686), all characterized by their.....

...handle is depressed to raise the blade clear of the water at the beginning of the recovery is called feathering. The extraction of the blade after driving the boat through the water is called the finish. Turning of the blade from horizontal to vertical in preparation for the catch is called squaring....

If fired ceramic ware is porous and fluid impermeability is desired, or if a purely decorative finish is desired, the product can be glazed. In glazing, a glass-forming formulation is pulverized and suspended in an appropriate solvent. The fired ceramic body is dipped in or painted with the glazing slurry, and it is refired at a temperature that is lower than its initial firing temperature but......

...common nails and finishing nails (see Figure). The most widely used of all nails, the common nail has a large, flat head that is driven in so that it is flush with the material’s surface. A finishing nail has a smaller, narrower head that is driven in below the material’s surface with a special tool called a nail set, or punch; the small depression remaining is filled in wi...

...région of France encompassing the northwestern départements of Ille-et-Vilaine, Morbihan, Côtes-d’Armor, and Finistère. Brittany is bounded by the régions of Basse-Normandie to the northeast and Pays de la Loire to the east. It protrudes westward into the....

...the Sand Dune”), his first novel, mixes acute perception of human motivation with social awareness, a combination that would appear throughout his career, including in his final novel, Finisterra (1978; “Land’s End”). Vergílio Ferreira, in a transition to existentialism, added a metaphysical dimension to the novel of social concern with Aleg...

...modified), and Courageous (1974). Stephens designed such famous ocean racers as Stormy Weather, Baruna, Blitzen, Bolero, Kialoa II, Kialoa III, and Finisterre, the last a three-time winner of the Bermuda Race (1956, 1958, and 1960). Sparkman & Stephens also designed the Lightning and Blue Jay one-design classes. In 1993 Olin was inducted.....

mountain range at the base of the Huon Peninsula, northeastern Papua New Guinea, in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It comprises a section of the northern boundary of the great C...

...however, nothing in one’s intuitive notion of probability that requires the acceptance of this property. Indeed, a few mathematicians have developed probability theory with only the weaker axiom of finite additivity, but the absence of interesting models that fail to satisfy the axiom of countable additivity has led to its virtually universal acceptance....

...of the 1976 A.M. Turing Award, the highest honour in computer science. Rabin and the American mathematician and computer scientist Dana S. Scott were cited for their early joint paper “Finite Automata and Their Decision Problem,” which has had a lasting impact on the field of automata theory, and for their subsequent independent work....

...cannot be negative, but unlike his predecessor his explanation of the difference between the attributes of God and those of created beings centred on the contrast between an infinite being and finite beings. It is through infinitude that God’s essential attributes—wisdom, for instance—differ from the corresponding and otherwise similar attributes found in created beings. In...

...loadings or for elastic-plastic materials when the slope of the stress versus strain relation is of the same order as existing stresses. Cases such as these are instead best approached through finite deformation theory....

...in the equation. The approximating equation has a solution at a discrete set of points, and this solution approximates that of the original equation. Such numerical procedures are often called finite difference methods. Most initial value problems for ordinary differential equations and partial differential equations are solved in this way. Numerical methods for solving differential and......

...trial functions of unknown amplitude into the variational functional, which is then rendered stationary as an algebraic function of the amplitude coefficients. In the most common version of the finite-element method, the domain to be analyzed is divided into cells, or elements, and the displacement field within each element is interpolated in terms of displacements at a few points around......

Methods of constructing BIB designs depend on the use of finite fields, finite geometries, and number theory. Some general methods were given in 1939 by the Indian mathematician Raj Chandra Bose, who has since emigrated to the United States....

Finally, a game is said to be finite when each player has a finite number of options, the number of players is finite, and the game cannot go on indefinitely. Chess, checkers, poker, and most parlour games are finite. Infinite games are more subtle and will only be touched upon in this article....

...Others, in common with non-Catholic philosophers, have discussed the traditional divine attributes—omniscience, omnipotence, eternity, immutability, personality, goodness. The concept of a finite deity developing through time was also proposed (e.g., by Charles Hartshorne) to meet objections to some of these concepts: If God is immutable, how can God be aware of successive events in......

...Others, in common with non-Catholic philosophers, have discussed the traditional divine attributes—omniscience, omnipotence, eternity, immutability, personality, goodness. The concept of a finite deity developing through time was also proposed (e.g., by Charles Hartshorne) to meet objections to some of these concepts: If God is immutable, how can God be aware of successive events in........

...the data than the original problem to be solved. Moreover, the formulation of the original problem should be stable or well-conditioned.Numerical analysts are very interested in the effects of using finite precision computer arithmetic. This is especially important in numerical linear algebra, as large problems contain many rounding errors.Numerical analysts are generally interested in measurin...

...mathematician at the Brunswick Technical Institute, who was his lifelong friend and colleague, marked the beginning of Cantor’s ideas on the theory of sets. Both agreed that a set, whether finite or infinite, is a collection of objects (e.g., the integers, {0, ±1, ±2 . . .}) that share a particular property while each object retains its own individualit...

...called small strain or infinitesimal strain. Expressions for strain will also be given that are valid for rotations and fractional length changes of arbitrary magnitude; such expressions are called finite strain....

The most important transducers are the finite transducers, or sequential machines, which may be characterized as one-way Turing machines with output. They are the weakest with respect to computing power, while the universal machine is the most powerful. There are also transducers of intermediate power....

The moderate form of intuitionism considered here embraces Kronecker’s constructivism but not the more extreme position of finitism. According to this view, which goes back to Aristotle, infinite sets do not exist, except potentially. In fact, it is precisely in the presence of infinite sets that intuitionists drop the classical principle of the excluded third....

...also diversified his business holdings, acquiring department stores, movie theatres, publishing companies, and the AC Milan football team. He consolidated his empire under the umbrella of the Finivest holding company, a vast conglomerate that grew to control more than 150 businesses....

German-born American railroad engineer and executive who was the first to investigate the economics of railroad operation on a systematic basis. He was also inventor of the Fink truss, used to support bridges and the roofs of buildings....

American writer whose works often reflect her interest in natural science....

Eugen Fink, for several years Husserl’s collaborator, whose essay Die phänomenologische Philosophie Edmund Husserls in der gegenwärtigen Kritik (1933) led to a radicalization of Husserl’s philosophical, transcendental idealism, later turned in another direction, one that approached Heidegger’s position and divorced itself at the same ti...

American entertainer and writer who was best known as the author of the highly popular Eloise books, featuring a comically endearing enfant terrible who bedeviled New York City’s Plaza Hotel....

American entertainer and writer who was best known as the author of the highly popular Eloise books, featuring a comically endearing enfant terrible who bedeviled New York City’s Plaza Hotel....

American keelboatman of the Old West, who became the legendary hero of the American tall tale....

Australian politician and publisher, noted for his interests in education....

German-born American railroad engineer and executive who was the first to investigate the economics of railroad operation on a systematic basis. He was also inventor of the Fink truss, used to support bridges and the roofs of buildings....

major but intermittent river of central Australia that rises south of Mount Ziel in the MacDonnell Ranges of south-central Northern Territory. The Finke passes through Glen Helen Gorge and Palm Valley and then meanders generally sout...

Nov. 19, 1922Mount Vernon, N.Y.May 30, 2007Santa Barbara, Calif.American novelist who was the author of the baseball tetralogy that chronicled the adventures of Henry Wiggen, a talented pitcher for the fictional New York Mammoths baseball team; the second novel in the series, Bang the Dr...

March 8, 1921/22Amarillo, TexasJune 17, 2008Los Angeles, Calif.American dancer and actress who won acclaim for her glamorous looks and sensual, technically flawless dancing in a handful of 1950s movie musicals, notably The Band Wagon (1953) and Silk Stockings (1957), both with...

traditionalist sculptor of simple, figurative subjects who was a leading figure in the early 20th-century revival of direct carving, whereby the sculptor seeks an image directly from the material to be carved, relying on neither the inspiration of models nor the aid of mechanical devices. Zorach’s mature work is monumental in form and makes skillful use of the natural colour, veining, and t...

Country, northern Europe....

The Bank of Finland (Suomen Pankki), established in 1811 and guaranteed and supervised by the parliament since 1868, is the country’s central bank and a member of the European System of Central Banks. In 2002, the EU’s common currency, the euro, replaced the markka, which had been Finland’s national currency since 1860. Compared with other European countries, Finland has relat...

national church of Finland, which changed from the Roman Catholic to the Lutheran faith during the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. Christianity was known in Finland as early as the 11th century, and in the 12th century Henry, bishop of Uppsala (Sweden), began organizing the c...

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easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea, between Finland (north) and Russia and Estonia (east and south). Covering an area of 11,600 square miles (30,000 square km), the gulf extends for 250 miles (400 km) from east to west but only 12 to 80 miles (19 to 130 km) from north to south. It has a maximum depth of 377 feet (115 m) at its...

History...

Eastern Orthodox church, recognized as the second state church of Finland. Most of the Orthodox Finns were originally from Karelia, the southeastern part of Finland that was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, which was Christianized by Russian monks in the 12th century. The Orthodox are now spread throu...

...an industrial appendage, but by the end of the 20th century most of its industry had been replaced by office and apartment buildings and retail establishments. One of its most famous features is the Finland Railway Station, which faces the Admiralty Side across the Neva. Lenin returned to Russia in April 1917 via this station, and there he made his initial pronouncement of a new course that......

Country, northern Europe....

Country, northern Europe....

The republic of Finland is in northern Europe, on the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland. Area: 338,145 sq km (130,559 sq mi). Pop. (1993 est.): 5,058,000. Cap.: Helsinki. Monetary unit: Finnish markka, with (Oct. 4, 1993) a free rate of 5.82 markkaa to U.S. $1 (8.82 markkaa = £ 1 sterling). President in 1993, Mauno Koivisto; prime minister, Esko Aho....

The republic of Finland is in northern Europe, on the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland. Area: 338,145 sq km (130,559 sq mi). Pop. (1994 est.): 5,083,000. Cap.: Helsinki. Monetary unit: Finnish markka, with (Oct. 7, 1994) a free rate of 4.74 markkaa to U.S. $1 (7.53 markkaa = £ 1 sterling). Presidents in 1994, Mauno Koivisto and, from March 1, Martti Ahtisaari; prime minister, Esko Ah...

The republic of Finland is in northern Europe, on the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland. Area: 338,145 sq km (130,559 sq mi). Pop. (1995 est.): 5,101,000. Cap.: Helsinki. Monetary unit: Finnish markka, with (Oct. 6, 1995) a free rate of 4.31 markkaa to U.S. $1 (6.81 markkaa = £ 1 sterling). President in 1995, Martti Ahtisaari; prime ministers, Esko Aho and, from April 13, Paavo Lippon...

The republic of Finland is situated in northern Europe, on the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland. Area: 338,145 sq km (130,559 sq mi). Pop. (1996 est.): 5,132,000. Cap.: Helsinki. Monetary unit: Finnish markka, with (Oct. 11, 1996) a free rate of 4.58 markkaa to U.S. $1 (7.21 markkaa = £ 1 sterling). President in 1996, Martti Ahtisaari; prime minister, Paavo Lipponen....

Area: 338,145 sq km (130,559 sq mi)...

Area: 338,145 sq km (130,559 sq mi)...

In 1999 Finland’s Pres. Martti Ahtisaari made international news by heading talks in Belgrade that resulted in Serbia’s agreeing to pull its armed forces out of Kosovo. (See Biographies.) NATO’s intervention in Yugoslavia was widely endorsed by the countr...

In February 2000 Tarja Halonen (see Biographies) of the left-wing Social Democratic Party was elected Finland’s first woman president. Although known in her youthful political days as “Red Tarja,” she later served (1995–2000) as an orthodox ...

Though other countries in the region made plans in 2001 to join NATO, Finland maintained its nonalliance stance but welcomed NATO’s open-door policy and pledged to cooperate closely within NATO’s Partnership for Peace....

Finland’s historically edgy relationship with Russia again dominated news in 2002. During his July visit to Finland, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Ivanov declared that Moscow’s NATO links would not be damaged if the other Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—joined NATO, but Russia would ...

Following the general elections in March 2003, opposition leader Anneli Jäätteenmäki became prime minister in April, but she resigned in June after confessing that she did not have the confidence of Parliament. Jäätteenmäki had come under intense pressure after it became known that s...

Finnish Pres. Tarja Halonen spoke on the international stage in September 2004 when she told the United Nations that she thought the U.S.-led military intervention in Iraq was not in line with international law. Speaking to the UN General Assembly shortly after an address by U.S. Pres. George W. Bush, Halonen said that the international community had failed in advance of the Iraq war, “conf...

A prolonged labour dispute in Finland’s paper industry, which accounted for as much as 20% of the country’s exports, dominated much of 2005. The conflict began when the Finnish Forest Industries Federation announced that it would not join in the comprehensive collective labour agreement reached in late 2004. At the end of March 2005, after months of fruitles...

In 2006 Finland celebrated the centenary of full political rights for women, a first in world history, and in January Pres. Tarja Halonen, the country’s first woman head of state, was reelected for a second six-year term. Halonen, the Social Democratic Party candidate, gained the most votes in the first round but failed to achieve the 50% majorit...

The elections to the Finnish parliament in March 2007 resulted in three parties’ proclaiming themselves victorious: the Centre Party remained the largest party, with a 23.1% share (down from 24.7% in 2003); the National Coalition Party (or Conservatives) emerged as the only one of the three big parties to increase its po...

Eero Heinäluoma, the head of Finland’s Social Democratic Party (SDP), announced in February 2008 that he would not run for the position again in the June convention owing to the party’s unfavourable election results in the 2007 general election. As his replacement, SDP members elected Jutta Urpilainen, a primary-school teacher who was elec...

The Finnish economy took a further plunge in 2009. The economy was heavily dependent on exports, which had accounted for 44% of GDP in 2008. The value of exported goods alone dropped a historic 35% in the first quarter of 2009 from the same period a year earlier. At the same time, the value of imports, most notably raw materials and other items needed in manufactur...