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  • Kánya, Kálmán (Hungarian statesman)
    ...who was more of a conservative than a right-wing radical. His appointment was ill-received in Germany, which grew even more hostile the next year, when Darányi’s foreign minister, Kálmán Kánya, obtained the tacit consent of the Little Entente for Hungary to rearm, although Hungary was still sadly short of armaments, for which, again, Germany was its only......
  • Kanyakubja (India)
    city, central Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. Kannauj is situated near the Ganges River, northwest of Kānpur, with which it has road and rail connections. Its name probably has more popular spellings than any other place-name in India. Kannauj has existed since ancient times and contains numerous ruins and artifacts. It was important during the Gupta empire, and in the early 7th centur...
  • Kanyākumāri (India)
    town, southern Tamil Nādu state, southeastern India. The town is situated on Cape Comorin, which is the southernmost point on the Indian subcontinent. Kanniyākumāri is a tourist and pilgrimage centre noted for its Śiva temple and its Gandhi memorial. Legend claims that the goddess Kanyā Kumārī (“Youthful Virgin”) killed a demon on the ...
  • Kanye (Botswana)
    village, southern Botswana. It lies along a main road southwest of Gaborone, the national capital. It is one of the country’s largest villages and the traditional headquarters of the Bangwaketse people. Kanye is equipped with a mission hospital, an airfield, banks, and schools. Pop. (1984 est.) 23,000....
  • Kanzan (mythological figure)
    artist who painted some of the earliest Japanese suiboku works—a Chinese-inspired style of monochromatic ink painting favoured by Zen Buddhist priest-painters. His portrait of Kanzan, a mythical figure who represents the Zen way of life, and the techniques used in the portrait (strong abbreviated outlines that contrast with soft washes, asymmetrical composition, and significant......
  • Kanzan and Jittoku (painting by Soga Shōhaku)
    ...Jasoku ken, or Jasoku jussei (“the tenth”). He excelled in ink monochrome portraits, which he made with powerful brushwork using broad strokes. The two-scroll painting “Kanzan and Jittoku”—two Chinese monks of the T’ang dynasty—is a good example. He also drew pictures of weird and demoniac quality and, being of a haughty disposition...
  • Kanze Kiyotsugu (Japanese author)
    Japanese actor, playwright, and musician who was one of the founders of nō drama....
  • Kanze Kojirō Nobumitsu (Japanese author)
    ...character was familiar to the audience. Zeami’s plays emphasized the quality of restrained beauty (yūgen), a concept derived in part from Zen Buddhism. Later plays, especially those by Kanze Kojirō Nobumitsu (1435–1516), such as Momijigari (The Maple Viewing) and Ataka (The Ataka Barrier), emphasize action and spectacle......
  • Kanze Motokiyo (Japanese dramatist)
    the greatest playwright and theorist of the Japanese nō theatre. He and his father, Kan’ami (1333–84), were the creators of the nō drama in its present form....
  • Kanze school (nō theatre)
    school of nō theatre known for its emphasis on beauty and elegance. The school was founded in the 14th century by Kan’ami, who founded the Yūzaki-za (Yūzaki troupe), the precursor of the Kanze school. The second master, Zeami Motokiyo, completed the basic form of the art under the protection of the shogun Ashikaga...
  • Kanze-ryū (nō theatre)
    school of nō theatre known for its emphasis on beauty and elegance. The school was founded in the 14th century by Kan’ami, who founded the Yūzaki-za (Yūzaki troupe), the precursor of the Kanze school. The second master, Zeami Motokiyo, completed the basic form of the art under the protection of the shogun Ashikaga...
  • kanzen chōaku (ethical principle)
    ...noble gentlemen. Where they succeeded, as in a few works by Takizawa Bakin, they are absorbing as examples of storytelling rather than as embodiments of the principle of kanzen chōaku (“the encouragement of virtue and the chastisement of vice”), Bakin’s professed aim in writing fiction....
  • Kanzeon Bōsatsu (bodhisattva)
    the bodhisattva (“Buddha-to-be”) of infinite compassion and mercy, possibly the most popular of all Buddhist deities, beloved throughout the Buddhist world. He supremely exemplifies the bodhisattva’s resolve to postpone his own Buddhahood until he has helped every being on earth achieve emancipation....
  • kanzlei (calligraphy)
    in calligraphy, script that in the 16th century became the vehicle of the New Learning throughout Christendom. It developed during the preceding century out of the antica corsiva, which had been perfected by the scribes of the papal chancery. As written by the calligrapher and printer Ludovico degli Arrighi...
  • Kao Ch’i-p’ei (Chinese painter)
    technically innovative Chinese landscape painter who used his hands—palms, fingers, nails—in place of the traditional Chinese brush. Gao was precocious and gifted and served in an official capacity during the Qing period. His larger paintings for the Manchu court were somewhat more orthodox, but he painted smaller works with great speed and facility, revealing in them his rather cons...
  • Kao Chien-fu (Chinese artist)
    ...Okakura Kakuzō, who founded the Tokyo Fine Arts School in 1889. Thus, it is not surprising that among the first in China to respond similarly were artists who had traveled to Japan, including Kao Chien-fu, his brother Kao Ch’i-feng, and Ch’en Shu-jen. Kao Chien-fu studied art for four years in Japan, beginning in 1898; during a second trip there, he met Sun Yat-sen, and sub...
  • Kao Hsing-chien (Chinese author and critic)
    Chinese émigré novelist, playwright, and critic who in 2000 was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature “for an oeuvre of universal validity, bitter insights and linguistic ingenuity.” He was also renowned as a stage director and as an artist....
  • Kao Island (island, Tonga)
    ...in the Tongatapu Group, with an area of 100.6 square miles (260.5 square km), is the largest and most densely populated island in Tonga. The highest point in Tonga, 3,389 feet (1,033 metres), is on Kao Island in the Haʿapai Group. ʿEua Island (Tongatapu Group) has an old volcanic ridge rising to 1,078 feet (329 metres) above sea level. The Vavaʿu Group has hills ranging fro...
  • Kao Kang (Chinese political leader)
    one of the early leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and one of the most important figures in the communist government established after 1949. His purge in 1954–55 was the biggest scandal in the Chinese communist movement from the mid-1930s to the 1960s....
  • Kao K’o-kung (Chinese artist)
    ...of his paintings. Li K’an carefully studied the varieties of bamboo during his official travels and wrote a systematic treatise on painting them; he remains unsurpassed as a skilled bamboo painter. Kao K’o-kung followed Mi Fu and Mi Yu-jen in painting cloudy landscapes that symbolized good government. Wang Mien, who served not the Mongols but anti-Mongol forces at the end of the d...
  • Kao Ming (Chinese author)
    Chinese poet and playwright whose sole surviving opera, Pipaji (The Lute), became the model for drama of the Ming dynasty....
  • Kaō Ninga (Japanese painter)
    artist who painted some of the earliest Japanese suiboku works—a Chinese-inspired style of monochromatic ink painting favoured by Zen Buddhist priest-painters. His portrait of Kanzan, a mythical figure who represents the Zen way of life, and the techniques used in the portrait (strong abbreviated outlines that contrast with soft washes, asymmetrical composition, and significant empty...
  • “Kao no naka no akai tsuki” (work by Noma)
    Noma attracted attention after the war with the novels Kurai e (1946; “Dark Painting”) and Kao no naka no akai tsuki (1947; A Red Moon in Her Face), both of which present a protagonist’s conflict between self-image and carnal desire. The novel Kurai e combined the techniques of Symbolism and the Proletarian Literature Movement, using......
  • Kao, Rano (volcano, Easter Island)
    ...Raraku, and Rano Aroi. One intermittent stream, fed by the Rano Aroi crater lake, flows down Mount Terevaka’s slopes before disappearing into the porous soil. Water from the extremely deep crater of Rano Kao, which is about 3,000 feet wide, is piped to Hanga Roa. The coast is formed by soft, eroded, ashy cliffs, with a vertical drop of about 500 to 1,000 feet; the cliffs are intercepted ...
  • Kao-hou (empress of Han dynasty)
    the first woman ruler of China, wife of Gaozu, the first emperor (reigned 206–195 bc) of the Han dynasty (206 bc–ad 220)....
  • Kao-hsiung (county, Taiwan)
    hsien (county), southwestern Taiwan. With an area of 1,078 square miles (2,793 square km), it is bordered by the hsiens of T’ai-nan and Chia-i (north), T’ai-tung and Hua-lien (east), and P’ing-tung (south) and by the Taiwan Strait (west). Kao-hsiung city and its major international port with a large dry dock are situated in the western-coastal region of the h...
  • Kao-hsiung (Taiwan)
    shih (municipality) and major international port in southwestern Taiwan, with an area of 59 square miles (154 square km). The site has been settled since the later part of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). In early times the Chinese called the place Ta-kou, a rough rendering of the name of the local aboriginal tribe, the Makattao, or Takow. The Dutch, who occupied the area from 1624 to 1...
  • Kao-Hsiung Hsien (Taiwan)
    shih (municipality) and seat of Kao-hsiung hsien (county), southwestern Taiwan, situated about 5 miles (8 km) east of Kao-hsiung shih in Taiwan’s western coastal plain. Developed during a politically unsettled period of the 17th century in an interregnum dominated by the pirate Cheng Chih-lung (1604–61), the city has many Buddhist and Confucian relics. The major ...
  • kao-hu (Chinese musical instrument)
    ...is played both as a solo instrument and in an orchestral setting. A higher-pitched version with a smaller resonator surface and shorter post is the gaohu, or nanhu. A larger, lower-pitched version of the erhu is called ......
  • Kao-kuan Pass (mountain pass, China)
    ...by an extremely complex drainage pattern. Three major passes cross the Tsinling Mountains: the San-kuan Pass south of Pao-chi, which leads to the Chia-ling Valley and thus into Szechwan; the Kao-kuan Pass south of Sian, which leads to the Han-chung Basin; and the Lan-t’ien Pass southeast of Sian, which affords a route to Nan-yang in Honan and to northern Anhwei Province....
  • Kao-lan-pu (Sri Lanka)
    city, administrative capital of Sri Lanka. (Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte, a Colombo suburb, is the legislative and judicial capital.) It is situated on the west coast of the island, just south of the Kelani River, and is a principal port of the Indian Ocean. Colombo has one of the largest artificial harbours in the world and handles the majority of Sri Lanka’s foreign trade....
  • Kao-li-kung Mountains (mountains, China)
    ...close together from the Tibetan border, branch out southeastward across the province in fanlike fashion. Running roughly northwest to southeast, these high ranges are, from west to east, the Kao-li-kung, the Nu, and the Yün-ling. Branching farther out from the Yün-ling are some secondary ranges—the Wu-liang and the Ai-lao in the central south area, the Liu-chao in the......
  • Kao-tsu (emperor of Tang dynasty)
    temple name (miaohao) of the founder and first emperor (618–626) of the Tang dynasty (618–907)....
  • Kao-tsu (emperor of Han dynasty)
    temple name (miaohao) of the founder and first emperor of the Han dynasty (206 bc–ad 220), under which the Chinese imperial system assumed most of the characteristics that it was to retain until it was overthrown in 1911/12. He reigned from 206 to 195 bc. His wife, the empress Gaoho...
  • Kao-tsung (emperor of Southern Song dynasty)
    temple name (miaohao) of the first emperor of the Nan (Southern) Song dynasty (1127–1279). He fled to South China when the nomadic Juchen tribesmen overran North China and captured Gaozong’s father, the abdicated Bei (Northern) Song emperor Huizong (reigned 1100–1125/26), and Gaoz...
  • Kao-tsung (emperor of Tang dynasty)
    temple name (miaohao) of the third emperor of the Tang dynasty and husband of the empress Wuhou. During his 34-year reign (649–683) he expanded the Tang empire into Korea....
  • Kao-yu Lake (lake, China)
    Su-pei’s major drainage systems are Hung-tse Lake and the Huai River, which flows into the lake; Kao-yu Lake, through which waters from Hung-tse Lake reach the Yangtze; the Su-pei Canal, which drains Hung-tse Lake; and the Grand Canal, which runs through the entire province from north to south and connects Su-pei with the Yangtze Delta. During several periods in Chinese history, northern......
  • Kaohsiung (Taiwan)
    shih (municipality) and major international port in southwestern Taiwan, with an area of 59 square miles (154 square km). The site has been settled since the later part of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). In early times the Chinese called the place Ta-kou, a rough rendering of the name of the local aboriginal tribe, the Makattao, or Takow. The Dutch, who occupied the area from 1624 to 1...
  • “Kao’i” (work by Sima Guang)
    ...as rites, music, astronomy, geography, and economy. In spite of Sima’s moral perspective, his chronicle showed evidence of rigorous critical standards. He even compiled a separate work, the Gaoyi (“Scrutiny”), which dealt with the discrepancies in his numerous sources and gave his reasons for preferring certain authorities....
  • Kaokoland (region, Namibia)
    geographic region, northwestern Namibia. It is inhabited by the Bantu-speaking Herero, Ovahimba, and Ovatjimba nomadic pastoralists. Kaokoland is bordered by Angola and the Kunene River to the north, the Owambo geographic region to the east, the Hoanib River to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. It is an arid, sparsely populated, and extremely isolated region that wa...
  • Kaokoveld (region, Namibia)
    geographic region, northwestern Namibia. It is inhabited by the Bantu-speaking Herero, Ovahimba, and Ovatjimba nomadic pastoralists. Kaokoland is bordered by Angola and the Kunene River to the north, the Owambo geographic region to the east, the Hoanib River to the south, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west. It is an arid, sparsely populated, and extremely isolated region that wa...
  • Kaolack (Senegal)
    town, west-central Senegal. It lies on the right bank of the Saloum River, 95 miles (150 km) southeast of Dakar. An ocean and river port with an important export trade in peanuts (groundnuts) and salt, it is linked by rail with Guinguinéo (13 miles [21 km] northeast) and the Dakar-Niger railway. It is also the hub of the road network that serves both th...
  • kaoliang (grain)
    cereal grain plant of the family Gramineae (Poaceae), probably originating in Africa, and its edible starchy seeds. All types raised chiefly for grain belong to the species Sorghum vulgare, which includes varieties of grain sorghums and grass sorghums, grown for hay and fodder, and broomcorn, used in making brooms and brushes. Grain sorghums include durra, milo, shallu, kafir corn, Egyptia...
  • kaolin (clay)
    soft white clay that is an essential ingredient in the manufacture of china and porcelain and is widely used in the making of paper, rubber, paint, and many other products. Kaolin is named after the hill in China (Kao-ling) from which it was mined for centuries. Samples of kaolin were first sent to Europe by a French Jesuit missionary around 1700 as examples of the materials use...
  • kaolinite (mineral)
    group of common clay minerals that are hydrous aluminum silicates; they comprise the principal ingredients of kaolin (china clay). The group includes kaolinite and its rarer forms, dickite and nacrite, halloysite, and allophane, which are chemically similar to kaolinite but amorphous....
  • kaolinitic soil (soil)
    soil that is formed under the heat and heavy rainfall of the tropics, which leaches out the silica and the bases. Thus, the soil is silica-poor; highly weathered, sometimes to a depth of many metres and therefore poor in weatherable minerals; rich in iron, which is released by weathering, is not bound to the clay, and forms concretions that are often large and abundant; and very permeable, becaus...
  • kaolisol (soil)
    soil that is formed under the heat and heavy rainfall of the tropics, which leaches out the silica and the bases. Thus, the soil is silica-poor; highly weathered, sometimes to a depth of many metres and therefore poor in weatherable minerals; rich in iron, which is released by weathering, is not bound to the clay, and forms concretions that are often large and abundant; and very permeable, becaus...
  • kaon (subatomic particle)
    ...particles had also been discovered; all these particles are now known to have corresponding antiparticles. Thus, there are positive and negative muons, positive and negative pi-mesons, and the K-meson and the anti-K-meson, plus a long list of baryons and antibaryons. Most of these newly discovered particles have too short a lifetime to be able to combine with electrons. The exception is......
  • Kaonde (people)
    a Bantu-speaking people who inhabit the northwestern region of Zambia. Their wooded highlands average 4,000 feet (1,220 m) in elevation; to the southeast begin open plains noted for their abundant wild animals....
  • kaozheng xue (Chinese history)
    ...activities. Scholars in Beijing and in the rich cities of the Yangtze delta turned from politics to the study of texts that marked the empirical school of scholarship (kaozheng xue). Influenced by their knowledge of European mathematics and mathematical astronomy, these scholars laid down new rules for verifying the authenticity of the Classical texts......
  • Kapaa (Hawaii, United States)
    city, Kauai county, on the east-central coast of Kauai island, Hawaii, U.S. Sugarcane and pineapple plantations once dotted the region around Kapaa. Rice was also grown, and Chinese merchants once dominated the commercial centre. Since the 1960s, tourism, diversified agriculture, and service industries have become the main sources of income, replacing pineappl...
  • Kapa‘a (Hawaii, United States)
    city, Kauai county, on the east-central coast of Kauai island, Hawaii, U.S. Sugarcane and pineapple plantations once dotted the region around Kapaa. Rice was also grown, and Chinese merchants once dominated the commercial centre. Since the 1960s, tourism, diversified agriculture, and service industries have become the main sources of income, replacing pineappl...
  • kapāla (skull cup)
    cup made of a human skull, frequently offered by worshipers to the fierce Tantric deities of Hindu India and Buddhist Tibet. In Tibet the skull cup is displayed on the Buddhist altar and is used in ritual to offer to the ferocious dharmapāla (“defender of the faith”) divinities either wine, which symbolizes blood, or dough cakes, which are shaped to r...
  • Kapalika (Hindu ascetics)
    members of either of two groups of Shaivite (devotees of Shiva) ascetics most prominent in India from the 8th through the 13th century, notorious for their practices of worship, which included the esoteric rites and animal and human sacrifice. They were successors of the Pashupatas, an early sect that worshipped Shiva according to “animal” (...
  • Kapampangan (people)
    cultural-linguistic group of the Philippines. The Pampangan, numbering about 1,970,000 in the late 20th century, live principally in the central plain of Luzon Island but also inhabit other portions of the island. Their region, extending north from Manila Bay, has a relatively high population density; there are many tenant farmers and landless workers. Their religion is Christian, predominantly Ro...
  • Kapampangan language
    Major Austronesian languages include Cebuano, Tagalog, Ilokano, Hiligaynon, Bikol, Waray, Kapampangan, and Pangasinan of the Philippines; Malay, Javanese, Sundanese, Madurese, Minangkabau, the Batak languages, Acehnese, Balinese, and Buginese of western Indonesia; and Malagasy of Madagascar. Each of these languages has more than one million speakers. Javanese alone accounts for about......
  • Kaparu Palace (palace, Tall Ḥalaf, Syria)
    ...reception room, with an adjoining staircase to the roof, and a varying number of retiring rooms (see art and architecture, Syro-Palestinian). A striking example of these bit hilani is the Kaparu Palace at Tall Ḥalaf, near the source of the Khābūr River. The almost barbaric array of sculpture shows the city to have been predominantly Aramaean....
  • Kaper, Bronislau (Polish-American composer)
    ...Black-and-White: Edward Carfagno and Cedric Gibbons for Julius CaesarArt Direction, Color: George W. Davis and Lyle Wheeler for The RobeMusic Score of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture: Bronislau Kaper for LiliScoring of a Musical Picture: Alfred Newman for Call Me MadamSong: “Secret Love”......
  • kapetan (Ottoman government)
    ...fiercely resisted by local Janissaries in Bosnia. The Ottoman authorities mounted punitive campaigns against the Janissaries’ stronghold, Sarajevo, in 1827 and 1828. In 1831 a charismatic young kapetan called Husein seized power in Bosnia, imprisoning the vizier in Travnik. With an army of 25,000 men, Husein then marched into Kosovo to negotiate with the Ottoman grand vizier, dema...
  • “Kapetan Mikhalis, O” (work by Kazantzakis)
    ...tou Aléxi Zormpá (1946; Zorba the Greek), a portrayal of a passionate lover of life and poor-man’s philosopher; O Kapetán Mikhális (1950; Freedom or Death), a depiction of Cretan Greeks’ struggle against their Turkish overlords in the 19th century; O Khristós Xanastavrónetai (1954; The Gr...
  • Kapfenberg (Austria)
    town, southeast-central Austria, at the confluence of the Mürz and Thörlbach rivers just northeast of Bruck. Founded around a fortress in the late 12th century, it was first mentioned in 1256. It had ironworks as early as the 15th century. Kapfenberg is resort town, has important steelworks, and manufactures cable, chemicals, and building materials. In the late 20t...
  • Kapghan (Turkish ruler)
    At the beginning of Xuanzong’s reign, the Turks again threatened to become a major power, rivaling China in Central Asia and along the borders. Kapghan (Mochuo), the Turkish khan who had invaded Hebei in the aftermath of the Khitan invasion in the time of Wuhou and had attacked the Chinese northwest at the end of her reign, turned his attention northward. By 711 he controlled the steppe fro...
  • kapıkulu (Ottoman army)
    Only late in the 14th century did Murad I and Bayezid I attempt to build up their own personal power by building a military slave force for the sultan under the name kapıkulu. Murad based the new force on his right to a fifth of the war booty, which he interpreted to include captives taken in battle. As these men entered his service, they were converted to Islām and trained......
  • Kapila (Vedic sage)
    Vedic sage who is often identified, with others, as the founder of the system of Samkhya, one of six schools of Vedic philosophy. He is not, however, the author of the text primarily responsible for giving the school its philosophical definition: Ishvarakrishna’s Samkhya-karika (c. 4th century ce)....
  • Kapila (India)
    city, northwestern Uttar Pradesh state, northern India. Haridwār lies along the Ganges River, at the boundary between the Indo-Gangetic Plain (south) and the Himalayan foothills (north). It is the site of the headworks of the Ganges Canal system. Haridwār is one of the seven sacred cities of the Hindus and a major pilgrimage centre. It has been known by many names; originally it was ...
  • Kapilavastu (India)
    ...of the Common Era, independent accounts of the life of the Buddha were composed. They do not recount his life from birth to death, often ending with his triumphant return to his native city of Kapilavastu (Pali: Kapilavatthu), which is said to have taken place either one year or six years after his enlightenment. The partial biographies add stories that were to become well-known, such as......
  • Kapilavatthu (India)
    ...of the Common Era, independent accounts of the life of the Buddha were composed. They do not recount his life from birth to death, often ending with his triumphant return to his native city of Kapilavastu (Pali: Kapilavatthu), which is said to have taken place either one year or six years after his enlightenment. The partial biographies add stories that were to become well-known, such as......
  • Kapilendra (Indian ruler)
    ...Narasiṃha IV, the last known king of the Eastern Gaṅga dynasty, ruled until 1425. The “mad king,” Bhānudeva IV, who succeeded him, left no inscriptions; his minister Kapilendra usurped the throne and founded the Sūryavaṃśa dynasty in 1434–35. The Eastern Gaṅgas were great patrons of religion and the arts, and the temples of t...
  • Kapileśvara (Indian ruler)
    ...Narasiṃha IV, the last known king of the Eastern Gaṅga dynasty, ruled until 1425. The “mad king,” Bhānudeva IV, who succeeded him, left no inscriptions; his minister Kapilendra usurped the throne and founded the Sūryavaṃśa dynasty in 1434–35. The Eastern Gaṅgas were great patrons of religion and the arts, and the temples of t...
  • Kapital, Das (work by Marx)
    one of the major works of the 19th-century economist and philosopher Karl Marx (1818–83), in which he expounded his theory of the capitalist system, its dynamism, and its tendencies toward self-destruction. He described his purpose as to lay bare “the economic law of motion of modern society.” The second and third volume...
  • Kapital, Das (drama by Malaparte)
    ...continuing to write articles and fiction, Malaparte wrote three realistic dramas, based on the lives of Marcel Proust (Du côté de chez Proust, performed 1948) and Karl Marx (Das Kapital, performed 1949) and on life in Vienna during the Soviet occupation (Anche le donne hanno perso la guerra, performed 1954; “The Women Lost the War Too”). He also....
  • Kapiti Island (island, New Zealand)
    uninhabited island at the northern entrance to Cook Strait, 5 miles (8 km) off the mouth of the Waikanae River, southwestern North Island, New Zealand. It is 9 square miles (23 square km) in area and may be part of a land bridge that once connected North and South islands. Generally rugged and half forested, Kapiti rises from cliffs on its seaward edge to the peak of Titeremoana, 1,780 feet (543 ...
  • Kapitsa, Pyotr Leonidovich (Soviet physicist)
    Soviet physicist who invented new machines for liquefaction of gases and in 1937 discovered the superfluidity of liquid helium. He was a corecipient of the 1978 Nobel Prize for Physics for his basic inventions and discoveries in the area of low-temperature physics....
  • kapkap (body ornament)
    ...designs were carved around the rims. The standard repertoire of abstract and representational motifs was also adapted to small carved objects, such as ladle handles. A favourite ornament was the kapkap, a breastplate consisting of a carved tortoiseshell plate mounted on a giant clam shell....
  • Kaplan, Justin (American writer, biographer, and editor)
    American writer, biographer, and book editor, best known for his acclaimed literary biographies of Mark Twain, Lincoln Steffens, and Walt Whitman....
  • Kaplan, Mordecai Menahem (American rabbi)
    American rabbi, educator, theologian, and religious leader who founded the influential Reconstructionist movement in Judaism....
  • Kaplan, Morton (American political scientist)
    Systems analysis was applied to international relations to explain how the forces of the international system affect the behaviour of states. The American political scientist Morton Kaplan delineated types of international systems and their logical consequences in System and Process in International Politics (1957). According to Kaplan, for example, the Cold War rivalry between the......
  • Kaplan turbine
    ...rating. This performance loss can be minimized by varying the inlet-blade angle of the runner to match the runner-inlet conditions more accurately with the water velocity for a given flow. In such a Kaplan turbine each blade can be swiveled about a post at right angles to the main turbine shaft, thus producing a variable pitch. The angle of the blades is controlled by an oil-pressure operated.....
  • Kaplansky, Irving (American mathematician)
    Canadian-born American mathematician (b. March 22, 1917, Toronto, Ont.—d. June 25, 2006, Los Angeles, Calif.), made important contributions to such algebraic areas as ring, group, and field theory as well as commutative algebra, and in 1989 he was the winner of the American Mathematical Society’s Leroy P. Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement. Kaplansky studied mathematics at the Uni...
  • Kapodístrias, Ioánnis Antónios, Komis (Greek statesman)
    Greek statesman who was prominent in the Russian foreign service during the reign of Alexander I (reigned 1801–25) and in the Greek struggle for independence....
  • Kapoeas Rivier (river, Indonesia)
    chief waterway of western Indonesian Borneo. The river rises in the Kapuas Hulu Mountains in the central part of the island and flows 710 miles (1,143 km) west-southwest, reaching the South China Sea in a great marshy delta west-southwest of Pontianak. It is navigable along most of its length....
  • kapok (fiber)
    seed-hair fibre obtained from the fruit of the kapok tree or the kapok tree itself. The kapok is a gigantic tree of the tropical forest canopy and emergent layer. Common throughout the tropics, the kapok is native to the New World and to Africa and was transported to Asia, where it is cultivated for its fibre, or floss. The kapok’s huge buttressed trunk tapers upward to a...
  • kapok (tree)
    ...from reaching the environment below, aerial seed dispersal is not as widely afforded as in other, more open ecosystems. Even so, many trees have managed to exploit this strategy. For example, the kapok tree, found in tropical forests throughout the world, is an emergent—a tree whose crown rises well above the canopy. The kapok’s towering height enables it to gain access to winds a...
  • kapok family (plant family)
    the bombax or kapok family of flowering trees and shrubs, in the mallow order (Malvales), comprising 27 genera. It is allied to the mallow family (Malvaceae), to which the cotton plant belongs, and is characteristic of the tropics. Bombacaceae members’ flowers are often large and showy. The family includes: Adansonia digitata, the African baobab; the genus Bomb...
  • Kapoor, Anish (Indian-born sculptor)
    In 2008 the first American museum survey of Anish Kapoor’s work in more than 15 years was featured at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. Anish Kapoor: Past, Present, Future highlighted the Indian-born London-based artist’s dazzling use of rich colours, polished surfaces, and sensuous forms. Kapoor emerged as part of a generation of British sculptors who gained recogn...
  • Kapoor, Prithvi Raj (Indian actor)
    The star film actor Prithvi Raj Kapoor founded Prithvi Theatres in Bombay in 1944 and brought robust realism to Hindi drama, then closed down in 1960 with a sense of completion after many tours throughout India. Prithvi’s sons, nephews, and old associates worked in his large company, which became a training centre for many actors who later joined the films. Among these was the outstanding s...
  • Kapoor, Raj (Indian actor and director)
    Indian motion-picture actor and director whose Hindi-language films were popular throughout India, the Middle East, the Soviet Union, and China....
  • Kaposi sarcoma (cancer)
    rare and usually lethal cancer of the tissues beneath the surface of the skin or of the mucous membranes. The disease can spread to other organs, including the liver, lungs, and intestinal tract. Kaposi sarcoma is characterized by red-purple or blue-brown lesions of the skin, mucous membranes, and other organs. The skin lesions may be firm or compressible, solitary or clustered. Kaposi sarcoma pri...
  • Kaposvár (Hungary)
    city of county status and seat of Somogy megye (county), southwestern Hungary. On hills flanking the upper valley of the Kapos River (which flows northeast to the Sió), it is the chief market town of the county and has played an important role in Hungarian art and poetry. There are ruins of a castle taken three times by the Turks in the 16th and ...
  • Kapp Putsch (German history)
    ...ratification of what the Germans called “the peace of unjustice”—the Treaty of Versailles. Resigning the chancellorship shortly after an abortive anti-governmental coup (the Kapp Putsch of March 1920) during which the cabinet, with the exception of the vice-chancellor, had left Berlin, he was subsequently retained in the governments of Hermann Müller and Joseph......
  • Kapp, Wolfgang (Prussian politician)
    reactionary Prussian politician who led the Kapp Putsch (1920), which attempted to overthrow the fledgling Weimar Republic and establish a rightist dictatorship....
  • kappa (Japanese mythology)
    in Japanese folklore, a type of vampirelike lecherous creature that is more intelligent than the devilish oni and less malevolent toward men. Kappa are credited with having taught the art of bonesetting to humans. They are depicted in legend and art as being the size of a 10-year-old child, yellow-green in colour, and resembling monkeys, but with fish scales or to...
  • Kappa (work by Akutagawa)
    ...perhaps accounting for their comparative unpopularity. His last important work, Kappa (1927), although a satiric fable about elflike creatures (kappa), is written in the mirthless vein of his last period and reflects his depressed state at the time. His suicide came as a shock to the literary world....
  • Kappa Alpha (social fraternity)
    ...at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, Va., in 1776. Membership is now based on general scholarship and is open to both men and women. The oldest social fraternity still in existence as such is Kappa Alpha, begun in 1825 at Union College, Schenectady, N.Y....
  • kappa effect (psychology)
    ...pitched. If the unfilled limits are defined by successive stimuli from different places, duration appears longer when the distance between the two sources is greater; this is called the S effect or kappa effect. The reverse is the tau effect, in which the distance is perceived as being wider when the interval between successive stimuli is longer....
  • kappa organism (biology)
    gram-negative symbiotic bacterium found in the cytoplasm of certain strains of the protozoan Paramecium aurelia. These bacteria, when released into the surroundings, change to P particles that secrete a poison (paramecin) that kills other sensitive strains of P. aurelia. The possession of kappa organisms is determined genetically. The kappa bearers, called killers,...
  • kappa particle (biology)
    gram-negative symbiotic bacterium found in the cytoplasm of certain strains of the protozoan Paramecium aurelia. These bacteria, when released into the surroundings, change to P particles that secrete a poison (paramecin) that kills other sensitive strains of P. aurelia. The possession of kappa organisms is determined genetically. The kappa bearers, called killers,...
  • kappel (Judaism)
    ...aid in concentrating during prayer. Formerly, however, it was always wrapped around the head. In orthodox Judaism, the head is invariably covered during worship, usually by a skullcap known as a yarmulka or kappel....
  • Kappel Bridge (bridge, Luzern, Switzerland)
    ...species of truss bridge, and the Italian Andrea Palladio’s “Treatise on Architecture” (1570) describes four designs. Several notable covered bridges were constructed in Switzerland. The Kappel Bridge (1333) of Luzern has been decorated since 1599 with 112 paintings in the triangular spaces between roof and crossbeams, depicting the history of the town and the lives of its t...
  • Kappel War, First (Switzerland [1529])
    (1529 and 1531), two conflicts of the Swiss Reformation. The name derives from the monastery of Kappel, on the border between the cantons of Zürich and Zug....
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