CentrX's New Writeups

Hydrogen (thing)

2004-10-25T07:53:24Z

(Named (Greek hydro, "water" + genes, "generating") by Antoine Laurent Lavoisier in reference to the generation of water from the combustion of hydrogen) A flammable, colorless, odorless, tasteless, gaseous chemical element, the lightest of the elements. Hydrogen-2 is called deuterium; hydrogen-3 is called tritium.

Symbol: H
Atomic number: 1
Atomic weight: 1.00794
Density (at 0Â°C with 101,325 pascals): 0.08988 g/L
Melting point: -259.14Â°C
Boiling point: -252.87Â°C
Main valence: -1, +1
Ground state electron configuration: 1s¹

civil liberties (idea)

2003-09-29T18:13:19Z

Rights or liberties guaranteed to all individuals by law, custom, judicial interpretation, etc. without governmental interference or restraint. Common civil liberties are freedom of speech, association, religion, conscience, and movement, and the right to a fair trial, and are essential to the appropriate operation of liberal democratic societies. They are natural rights retained by the people. In practice, such liberties are often constitutionally guaranteed in a bill of rights, as in the United States, or form part of the ordinary law, as in the United Kingdom.

See also: civil rights, a term for rights guaranteed by the state to its citizens, usually used to indicate the rights of groups, rather than individuals.

Reek (thing)

2002-05-15T00:28:36Z

To have a strong, offensive smell; to stink. The word is chiefly constructed with of or with, as in 'She reeks of perfume'. Known historic usages of this meaning of the word include in Jonathan Swift's The journal to Stella in 1710 ("I was forced to go to a blind chop-house,...and then go reeking from thence to the First Minister of State"), in Samuel Foote's Taste in 1752 ("Two Domitians reaking from the Dunghill"), in William Hurrell Mallock's A romance of the nineteenth century in 1881 ("She literally reeked of garlic"), and in Anna Katherine Green's Behind Closed Doors in 1888 ("I found a broken phial reeking with the smell of bitter almonds").

Freedom of speech (thing)

2002-04-08T22:43:50Z

The right and freedom to freely express any opinion without censorship or restraint, including the right to receive or impart information through any medium. Freedom of speech promotes inquiry and assists in the emergence of truth. In many societies, it is believed to be of intrinsic value as an element in individual well-being and self-fulfilment. It implies freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of the press, and free participation in political activity; and is indicative of a free society, rather than an authoritarian one.

Freedom of speech is frequently limited on grounds that fall into two categories. Speech is limited on a procedural basis, restricted based on time, place, and manner on the form and forums of its exercise. Speech is limited on a substantive basis involving restrictions on content, such as libel, slander, incitement to riot, pornography, obscenity, and in cases where copyright or national security…

Determinism (thing)

2002-03-30T21:26:16Z

Causal determinism is the thesis that every event—in the past, present, and future—is the result of a combination of causative events ("causes"). Without exception, every event in the present and future is a consequence of events in the past; everything is the necessary result of a sequence of causes.

This may seem to be a simple and obvious thesis, but the consequences of it are significant and recondite. For, if it is true, the events of the past dictate wholly the events of the present and future, thus making these events predictable. To clarify, a hypothetical, sufficiently vast intellect which, at any given moment, knew all the forces that animate the universe and the mutual states and positions of all entities that comprise nature, would know the activity of all bodies in the universe in eternity, with no uncertainty. If the future can thus be predicted with no uncertainty, then the future is as set and unalterable as the…

Greenwich Mean Time (thing)

2002-03-27T23:10:34Z

Mean solar time of the meridian (0Â° longitude) at Greenwich, England, from which other time zones are calculated. It was originally established within the United Kingdom to regularize railway timetables nationally, and was later adopted internationally.

Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) is the modern standard, and takes into account leap seconds. In popular usage, the two terms are synonymous.

Abbreviation: GMT
See also: Coordinated Universal Time