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 Talk Talk - Communication terms
Category: General technical and industrial
Date & country: 28/05/2010, UK
Words: 18630


supernova
Explosive death of a star, which temporarily attains a brightness of 100 million Suns or more, so that it can shine as brilliantly as a small galaxy for a few days or weeks. Very approximately, it is thought that a supernova explodes in a large galaxy about once every 100 years. Many supernovae – astronomers estimate some 50% – remain...

sunspot
Dark patch on the surface of the Sun, actually an area of cooler gas, thought to be caused by strong magnetic fields that block the outward flow of heat to the Sun's surface. Sunspots consist of a dark central umbra, about 4,000 K (3,700°C/6,700°F), and a lighter surrounding penumbra, about 5,500 K (5,200°C/9,400°F)....

sulphuric acid
Dense, viscous, colourless liquid that is extremely corrosive. It gives out heat when added to water and can cause severe burns. Sulphuric acid is used extensively in the chemical industry, in the refining of petrol, and in the manufacture of fertilizers, detergents, explosives, and dyes. It forms the acid component of car batteries

sulphur
Brittle, pale-yellow, non-metallic element, atomic number 16, relative atomic mass 32.064. It occurs in three allotropic forms: two crystalline (called rhombic and monoclinic, following the arrangements of the atoms within the crystals) and one amorphous. It burns in air with a blue flame...

sulphonamide
Any of a group of compounds containing the chemical group sulphonamide (SO2NH2) or its derivatives, which were, and still are in some cases, used to treat bacterial diseases. Sulphadiazine (C10H10N4O2S) is an exa...

supercomputer
Fastest, most powerful type of computer, with speeds measured in gigaflops (billions of floating-point calculations per second) or, at the high end, in teraflops (trillions of floating-point calculations per second). To achieve these extraordinary speeds, supercomputers use many processors working together (often in clusters) and techniques...

suslik
Small Eurasian ground squirrel Citellus citellus

succession
In ecology, a series of changes that occur in the structure and composition of the vegetation in a given area from the time it is first colonized by plants (primary succession), or after it has been disturbed by fire, flood, or clearing (secondary succession). If allowed to proceed undisturbed, succe...

surgeon fish
Any fish of the tropical marine family Acanthuridae. It has a flat body up to 50 cm/20 in long, is brightly coloured, and has a movable spine on each side of the tail that can be used as a weapon

surveying
Accurate measuring of the Earth's crust, or of land features or buildings. It is used to establish boundaries, and to evaluate the topography for engineering work. The measurements used are both linear and angular, and geometry and trigonometry are applied in the calculations

Suleiman
Ottoman sultan from 1520, known as the Magnificent and the Lawgiver. Under his rule, the Ottoman Empire flourished and reached its largest extent. He made conquests in the Balkans, the Mediterranean, Persia, and North Africa, but was defeated at Vienna in 1529 and Valletta (on Malta) in 1565. He was ...

succulent plant
Thick, fleshy plant that stores water in its tissues; for example, cacti and stonecrops Sedum. Succulents live either in areas where water is very scarce, such as deserts, or in places where it is not easily obtainable because of the high concentrations of salts in the soil, as...

surd
In mathematics, expression containing the root of an irrational number that can never be exactly expressed – for example, √3 = 1.732050808... . √3 can be expressed in index notation as 31/2 or 3 to the power half. Simplifying surds (roots) Expressions involving surds can be factorized numerically to s...

submersible
Vessel designed to operate under water, especially a small submarine used by engineers and research scientists as a ferry craft to support diving operations. The most advanced submersibles are the so-called lock-out type, which have two compartments: one for the pilot, the other to carry divers. The diving compartment is pressurized and...

Supremes, the
US vocal group, pioneers of the Motown sound, formed in 1959 in Detroit. Beginning in 1962, the group was a trio comprising, initially, Diana Ross (1944– ), Mary Wilson (1944– ), and Florence Ballard (1943–1976). The most successful female group of the 1960s, they had a string of pop hits beginning with `Where Did Our ...

superpower
State that through disproportionate military or economic strength can dominate smaller nations. The term was used to describe the USA and the USSR from the end of World War II, when they emerged as significantly stronger than all other countries. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the USA has been, arguably, now the world's sole sup...

Surrey
Click images to enlargeCounty of southern England. Area 1,660 sq km/641 sq mi Towns Kingston upon Thames (administrative headquarters), Farnham, Guildford, Leatherhead, Reigate, Woking, Epsom, Dorking Physical rivers Mole, Thames, and Wey; Box Hill (183 m/600 ft), Gibbet Hill (277 m/909 ft), and Leith Hill...

Sukarno, Achmed
Indonesian nationalist, president 1945–67. During World War II he cooperated in the local administration set up by the Japanese, replacing Dutch rule. After the war he became the first president of the new Indonesian republic, becoming president-for-life in 1966; he was ousted by Suharto

Sun
Click images to enlargeStar at the centre of our Solar System. It is about 5 billion years old, with a predicted lifetime of 10 billion years; its diameter is 1.4 million km/865,000 mi; its temperature at the surface (the photosphere) is about 5,800 K/5,530°C/9,986°F, and at the centre 15 mil...

Suharto, Thojib I
Indonesian politician and general, president 1967–98. His authoritarian rule met with domestic opposition from the left, but the Indonesian economy enjoyed significant growth until 1997, when it was hit by a financial crisis which swept Asia. Under his military-dominated `New Order` government, Indonesia pursued a pro-Western...

submarine
Underwater warship. The first underwater boat was constructed in 1620 for James I of England by the Dutch scientist Cornelius van Drebbel (1572–1633). A naval submarine, or submersible torpedo boat, the Gymnote, was launched by France in 1888. The conventional submarine of World War I was driven by diesel engine on the surfa...

Suzhou
City in Jiangsu province, China, south of the Chang Jiang River delta and east of the Grand Canal; population (1999 est) 845,687. Dating from about 1000 BC, it is popularly known as the `Venice of the East` because of its network of ancient bridges and canals. Traditional silk, embroidery, and other handicrafts have been augmented by ...

superconductivity
Increase in electrical conductivity at low temperatures. The resistance of some metals and metallic compounds decreases uniformly with decreasing temperature until at a critical temperature (the superconducting point) the resistance suddenly falls to zero. The phenomenon was discovered, at temperatures within a few degrees of absolute zero (0 K/...

surface tension
Property that causes the surface of a liquid to behave as if it were covered with a weak elastic skin; this is why a needle can float on water. It is caused by the exposed surface's tendency to contract to the smallest possible area because of cohesive forces between molecules at the surface. Allied phenomena include the formation of drople...

subatomic particle
In physics, a particle that is smaller than an atom. Such particles may be indivisible elementary particles, such as the electron and quark, or they may be composites, such as the proton, neutron, and alpha particle. See also particle physics

supercooling
Cooling of a liquid below its freezing point without freezing taking place; or the cooling of a saturated solution without crystallization taking place, to form a supersaturated solution. In both cases supercooling is possible because of the lack of solid particles around which crystals can form. Crystallization rapidly follows the introduction...

suspension
(chemistry) Mixture consisting of small solid particles dispersed in a liquid or gas, which will settle on standing. An example is milk of magnesia, which is a suspension of magnesium hydroxide in water

Suez Crisis
US architect and architectural historian. Originally designing in the international style of Mies van der Rohe, he later became an exponent of postmodernism. He designed the giant AT&T building in New York City in 1982 – a pink skyscraper with a Chippendale-style cabinet top. Born in Cle...

superego
In Freudian psychology, the element of the human mind concerned with the ideal, responsible for ethics and self-imposed standards of behaviour. It is characterized as a form of conscience, restraining the ego, and responsible for feelings of guilt when the moral code is broken

Sunningdale Agreement
Pact of December 1973 between the UK and Irish governments, together with the Northern Ireland executive, drawn up in Sunningdale, England. The agreement included provisions for a power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland. However, the executive lasted only five weeks before the UK government was defeated in a general election, and a general ...

suite
In baroque music, a set of contrasting instrumental pieces based on dance forms, known by their French names as allemande, bourrée, courante, gavotte, gigue, minuet, musette, passepied, rigaudon, sarabande, and so on. The term refers in more recent usage to a concert arrangement of set pieces from an extended ballet or stage composition, such ...

supplementary benefit
In Britain, former name (1966–88) for income support; weekly social security payments by the state to those with low incomes

Sudan
Country in northeast Africa, bounded north by Egypt, northeast by the Red Sea, east by Ethiopia and Eritrea, south by Kenya, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), west by the Central African Republic and Chad, and northwest by Libya. It is the largest country in Africa. Government The 1973 constitution was suspended after a...

Suriname
Country on the north coast of South America, bounded west by French Guiana, south by Brazil, east by Guyana, and north by the Atlantic Ocean. Government The 1987 constitution provides for a single-chamber, 51-member national assembly, elected by universal adult suffrage for a five-year term. The assembly elects the president, who is hea...

Supremacy, Acts of
Two UK acts of Parliament 1534 and 1559, which established Henry VIII and Elizabeth I respectively as head of the English church in place of the pope

Sun Yat-sen
Wade-Giles transliteration of Sun Zhong Shan

Sucre, Antonio José de
South American revolutionary leader. As chief lieutenant of Simón Bolívar, he won several battles in freeing the colonies of Ecuador and Bolivia from Spanish rule, and in 1826 became president of Bolivia. After a mutiny by the army and invasion by Peru, he resigned in 1828 and was assassinated in 1830 on his way to join Bolívar

supply and demand
One of the fundamental approaches to economics, which examines and compares the supply of a good with its demand (usually in the form of a graph of supply and demand curves plotted against price). For a typical good, the supply curve is upward-sloping (the higher the price, the more the manufacturer is willing to sell), while the demand curve i...

Sumerian civilization
The world's earliest civilization, dating from about 3500 BC and located at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in lower Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). It was a city-state with priests as secular rulers. After 2300 BC, Sumer declined. Sumerian culture was based on the taxat...

sugar
Sweet, soluble, crystalline carbohydrate found in the pith of sugar cane and in sugar beet. It is a disaccharide sugar, each of its molecules being made up of two simple-sugar (monosaccharide) units: glucose and fructose. Sugar is easily digested and forms a major source of energy in humans, being used in cooking and in the food industry as...

suffix
Letter or group of letters added to the end of a word in order to show its tense (`passed`), to form the plural (`children`), to change the part of speech (`wonderful` adjective; `wonderment` noun), or to form a new word (`se...

supply
In economics, the production of goods or services for a market in anticipation of an expected demand. The level of supply is determined by the price of the product, the cost of production, the level of technology available for production, and the price of other goods. There is no guarantee that supply will match actual demand

subsidiary
In business, a company that is legally controlled by another company having 50% or more of its shares. A parent company may believe that having a subsidiary is preferable to full integration for taxation purposes, or may allow local participation if the subsidiary is in another country

subsidy
Government payment or concession granted to a state or private company, or an individual. A subsidy may be provided to keep prices down, to stimulate the market for a particular product, or because it is perceived to be in the public interest. The payment of subsidies may distort the market, create shortages, reduce efficiency, or waste resources t...

sumo wrestling
National sport of Japan. Fighters of larger than average size (rarely less than 130 kg/21 st or 285 lb) try to push, pull, or throw each other out of a circular ring. Fighters follow a traditional diet and eat a great deal to build up body weight. In the ring, they try to get their centre of gravity as low to the ground as possible. Championshi...

sudden infant death syndrome
In medicine, the technical term for cot death

suffragist
US term for suffragette. In Britain, the term is used to indicate a member of the women's suffrage societies who wished to obtain the vote by peaceful lobbying. The leader of the movement, 1897–1919, was Millicent Fawcett. British suffragists are not to be confused with the suffragettes, who...

sub judice
Of judicial proceedings, not yet decided by a court of law or judge. As long as a matter is sub judice all discussion is prohibited elsewhere

Succoth
In Judaism, a festival celebrated in September/October, which commemorates the time when the Israelites lived in the wilderness during the Exodus from Egypt. As a reminder of the shelters used in the wilderness, huts (sukkah) are built and used for eating and sleeping during the seven-day celebration. Succoth occurs at ha...

supergiant
Largest and most luminous type of star known, with a diameter of up to 1,000 times that of the Sun. Supergiants are likely to become supernovae

Suzman, Helen Gavronsky
South African politician and human-rights activist. A university lecturer concerned about the inhumanity of the apartheid system, she joined the white opposition to the ruling National Party and became a strong advocate of racial equality, respected by black communities inside and outside South Africa. In 1978 she received the United Nations Hu...

superstring theory
In physics and cosmology, a mathematical theory developed in the 1980s to explain the properties of elementary particles and the forces between them (in particular, gravity and the nuclear forces) in a way that combines relativity and quantum theory. In string theory, the fundamental objects in the universe are not pointlike particles but extremely...

sublimation
Conversion of a solid to vapour without passing through the liquid phase. It is one of the changes of state of matter. Sublimation depends on the fact that the boiling point of the solid substance is lower than its melting point at atmospheric pressure. Thus by increasing pressure, a substance that s...

substitution reaction
In chemistry, the replacement of one atom or functional group in an organic molecule by another

substrate
In biochemistry, a compound or mixture of compounds acted on by an enzyme. The term also refers to a substance such as agar that provides the nutrients for the metabolism of micro-organisms. Since the enzyme systems of micro-organisms regulate their metabolism, the essential meaning is the same

sucrose
Sugar found in the pith of sugar cane and in sugar beet. It is popularly known as sugar. Sucrose is a disaccharide sugar, each of its molecules being made up of two simple sugar (monosaccharide) units: glucose and fructose

sulphate
Salt or ester derived from sulphuric acid. Most sulphates are water soluble (the chief exceptions are lead, calcium, strontium, and barium sulphates) and require a very high temperature to decompose them. The commonest sulphates seen in the laboratory are copper(II) sulphate (CuSO4), iron(II) sulphate (FeSO4
sulphide
Compound of sulphur and another element in which sulphur is the more electronegative element (see electronegativity). Sulphides occur in many minerals, for example pyrite, or `fool's gold`, which is a sulphide of iron. Some of the more volatile sulphides have extremely unpleasant odours (hydrogen sulphide smells of bad eggs)

sulphite
Salt or ester derived from sulphurous acid

sulphur dioxide
Pungent gas produced by burning sulphur or sulphide ores in air or oxygen. It is widely used for making sulphuric acid and for disinfecting food vessels and equipment for bleaching paper, and as a preservative in some food products. It occurs in industrial flue gases and is a major cause of acid rain. Since the 1990s, most urban areas in Europe and...

sulphurous acid
Solution of sulphur dioxide (SO2) in water. It is a weak acid

supersaturation
State of a solution that has a higher concentration of solute than would normally be obtained in a saturated solution. Many solutes have a higher solubility at high temperatures. If a hot saturated solution is cooled slowly, sometimes the excess solute does not come out of solution. This is an unstable situation and the introduction of a small soli...

surgical spirit
Ethanol to which has been added a small amount of methanol to render it unfit to drink. It is used to sterilize surfaces and to cleanse skin abrasions and sores

suckering
In plants, reproduction by new shoots (suckers) arising from an existing root system rather than from seed. Plants that produce suckers include elm, dandelion, and members of the rose family

subduction zone
In plate tectonics, a region where two plates of the Earth's rigid lithosphere collide, and one plate descends below the other into the weaker asthenosphere. Subduction results in the formation of ocean trenches, most of which encircle the Pacific Ocean. Ocean trenches are usually associated with volcanic island arcs and deep-focus earthqua...

superactinide
Any of a theoretical series of superheavy, radioactive elements, starting with atomic number 113, that extend beyond the transactinide series in the periodic table. They do not occur in nature and none has yet been synthesized. It is postulated that this series has a group of elements that have half-lives longer than those of the transactinide ...

Superior, Lake
Largest and deepest of the Great Lakes and the largest freshwater lake in the world; area 82,100 sq km/31,700 sq mi. Extending east–west for 616 km/385 mi, it reaches a maximum width of 260 km/163 mi and depth of 407 m/1,335 ft. The lake is bordered by the Canadian province of Ontario and the US states of Minnesota, Wiscons...

sunfish
Marine fish Mola mola with a disc-shaped body 3 m/10 ft long found in all temperate and tropical oceans. The term also applies to fish of the North American freshwater Centrarchidae family, which have compressed, almost circular bodies, up to 80 cm/30 in long, and are n...

sunshine recorder
Device for recording the hours of sunlight during a day. The Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder consists of a glass sphere that focuses the Sun's rays on a graduated paper strip. A track is burned along the strip corresponding to the time that the Sun is shining

Sundanese
The second-largest ethnic group in the Republic of Indonesia. There are more than 20 million speakers of Sundanese, a member of the western branch of the Austronesian family. Like their neighbours, the Javanese, the Sundanese are predominantly Muslim. They are known for their performing arts, especially jaipongan dance tradit...

sustainable
Capable of being continued indefinitely. For example, the sustainable yield of a forest is equivalent to the amount that grows back. Environmentalists made the term a catchword, in advocating the sustainable use of resources

summit
In international diplomacy, a personal meeting between heads of state to settle international crises and other matters of general concern. `Summit` was first used in this sense by Winston Churchill in 1950, although it could be applied to the meetings between himself, Roosevelt, and Stalin at Tehran and Yalta during World War II. During t...

superheterodyne receiver
The most widely used type of radio receiver, in which the incoming signal is mixed with a signal of fixed frequency generated within the receiver circuits. The resulting signal, called the intermediate-frequency (i.f.) signal, has a frequency between that of the incoming signal and the internal signal. The intermediate frequency is near the opt...

supersymmetry
In physics, a theory that relates the two classes of elementary particle, the fermions and the bosons. According to supersymmetry, each fermion particle has a boson partner particle, and vice versa. It has not been possible to marry up all the known fermions with the known bosons, and so the theory postulates the existence of other, as yet undiscov...

supply-side economics
School of economic thought advocating government policies that allow market forces to operate freely, such as privatization, cuts in public spending and income tax, reductions in trade-union power, and cuts in the ratio of unemployment benefits to wages. Supply-side economics developed as part of the monetarist (see monetarism) critique of ...

Sunday trading
Buying and selling on Sunday. This was banned in England and Wales by the Shops Act 1950, but the ban may have been in breach of Article 30 of the Treaty of Rome as amounting to an unlawful restraint on the free movement of goods. Following the defeat of a bill to enable widespread Sunday trading in April 1986, compromise legislation was introduced...

suburb
Outer part of an urban area. Suburbs generally consist of residential housing and shops of a low order (newsagent, small supermarket), which act as central places for the local community. Often, suburbs are the most recent growth of an urban area, and their end marks the urban fringe. Their growth may result in urban sprawl. Increasingly, out-o...

subtraction
Taking one number or quantity away from another, or finding the difference between two quantities; it is one of the four basic operations of arithmetic. Subtraction is neither commutative: a - b ≠ b - a nor associative: a - (...

survey
(statistics) In statistics, a method of collecting data in which people are asked to answer a number of questions (usually in the form of a questionnaire). An opinion poll is a survey. The reliability of a survey's results depends on whether the sample from which the information has been c...

Survival International
Organization formed in 1969 to support tribal peoples and their right to decide their own future, and to help them protect their lands, environment, and way of life. It operates in more than 60 countries worldwide. Its headquarters are in London, England. Projects have included lobbying against rainforest logging, huge dams, and industrial activity...

Sui dynasty
Chinese ruling family 581–618 which reunited China after the strife of the Three Kingdoms era. There were two Sui emperors: Yang Qien (Yang Chien, 541–604), and Yangdi (Yang-ti, ruled 605–17). Though short-lived, the Sui re-established strong centralized government, rebuilding the Great Wall and digging canals which l...

superfluid
Fluid that flows without viscosity or friction and has a very high thermal conductivity. Liquid helium at temperatures below 2 K (-271°C/-456°F) is a superfluid: it shows unexpected behaviour. For instance, it flows uphill in apparent defiance of gravity and, if placed in a container, will flow up the sides and escape. Ger...

subject
(grammar) Traditionally, one of the two main parts of a sentence, the other being the predicate. In grammar, the noun or pronoun that carries out the action of the verb in a sentence, as in `The dog chased the cat`. The subject also controls the form and number of ...

subordinate clause
In a sentence, a clause that has a finite verb (unlike a phrase) but cannot stand as a sentence in itself. `Nonfinite` phrases such as `after finishing the task` may also be included in the definition of subordinate clauses. A subordinate clause can depend on the main clause as an adjectival clause, an adverbial clause, or a nou...

subsidiarity
Devolution of decision-making within the European Union from the centre to the lowest level possible. Since the signing of the Maastricht Treaty on European union 1991, which affirms that, wherever possible, decisions should be `taken as closely as possible to the citizens`, subsidiarity has been widely debated as a means of counterin...

suffering
Physical or mental pain, interpreted in different ways in different faiths. In Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, suffering arises as a direct result of the actions (karma) of this or a previous life. In Chinese religion it arises from an imbalance in yin and yang, the forces of the universe. For Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, there is a problem o...

subsystem
In computing, hardware and/or software that performs a specific function within a larger system. Silicon Graphics, for example, uses subsystems to perform the many calculations needed for computer animation

Sunday school
Christian education movement founded in 1780 by Robert Raikes (1735–1811). Raikes set up a school in Gloucester to teach working children the elements of Christianity and basic literacy and arithmetic on Sundays. The idea was taken up by other denominations, and by the 19th century Sunday schools were widespread. Today, Sunday schools continue...

superbug
Popular name given to an infectious bacterium that has developed resistance to most or all known antibiotics. The widespread use of antibiotics, their release into the environment, and the carelessness of patients who do not complete a treatment course have all contributed to the dangerous spread of genes conferring antibiotic resistance to their c...

Sulla, Lucius Cornelius
Roman general and dictator. He was elected consul in 88 BC after defeating the Samnites several times during the Italian Social War. In the same year, Marius tried to deprive him of the command against the king of Pontus, Mithridates (VI) Eupator (120–60 BC). Sulla's unprecedented response was to march on Rome, executing or putting to flig...

sustainable development
In ecology, development that could continue, in theory, for ever without seriously damaging the environment. Environmental damage may involve, for example, pollution, loss of habitats, extinction of species, and reduction in the diversity of species (biodiversity). In 1992 the greatest summit of leaders the world had ever seen took place in Rio de ...

superrealism
Art that is extremely similar in visual appearance to the subject. Superrealism was very popular in the USA during the 1970s with artists such as Duane Hanson. In painting, images are often direct, detailed copies of photographs, while in sculpture, techniques such as casts made directly from the human figure are used

Sumatera
Alternative name for Sumatra, the second-largest island of Indonesia

summary
Issue or topic condensed into a few words so as to give a brief description of the general, and most important, points of the issue in question

Sunna
Muslim code of practice; a body of traditional law based on the sayings, actions, and guidance of the prophet Muhammad, as detailed in the Hadith and the Sirah (a biography of the prophet's life). The Sunna forms part of the Shari'a, the law of Islam; there is no difference between civil and religious law. Followi...

suspension
(earth science) In earth science, the sediment that is carried by a river, or a wave, and is kept off the floor (bed) of the river, or shore. The material is carried within the body of water and is held up by turbulent flow. Most of the particles are less than 0.2 mm/0.01 in in diameter. I...

suburbanized village
Village settlement affected by counter-urbanization. The reversal of movement from the centre of large urban areas in many parts of the developed world has led to many people moving into the villages surrounding these areas. This has changed the character of these settlements in relation to form, function, size, and population structure. As vil...

sum
In computing, a specific function that means `find the total`

Sudra
A member of the fourth caste in India's caste system. Traditionally members of the Sudra are not allowed to study the Veda, the most sacred of the Hindu scriptures, or learn Sanskrit. They are religiously known as `once born` and are those members of the community who provide a service, such as manual and agricultural labourers, or wa...

sura
A subdivision or chapter of the Islamic scripture the Koran (or Qur'an). In total there are 114 suwar in the Koran, divided further into 6,666 verses. Sura Fatiha, a prayer asking Allah for guidance, is the opening sura, and the Koran concludes with the sura entitled Sura an-Naas