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


Laurasia
Northern landmass formed 200 million years ago by the splitting of the single world continent Pangaea. (The southern landmass was Gondwanaland.) It consisted of what was to become North America, Greenland, Europe, and Asia, and is believed to have broken up about 100 million years ago with the separation of North America from Europe

lagoon
Coastal body of shallow salt water, usually with limited access to the sea. The term is normally used to describe the shallow sea area cut off by a coral reef or barrier islands

landslide
Sudden downward movement (see mass movement) of a mass of soil or rocks from a cliff or steep slope. Landslides happen when a slope becomes unstable, usually because the base has been undercut or because materials within the mass have become wet and slippery. A mudflow happens when soil or loose mate...

lathe
Machine tool, used for turning. The workpiece to be machined, usually wood or metal, is held and rotated while cutting tools are moved against it. Modern lathes are driven by electric motors, which can drive the spindle carrying the workpiece at various speeds. Computer Numerical Control (CNC) lathes include the hardware needed to interface with a ...

language
Human communication through speech, writing, or both. Different nationalities or ethnic groups typically have different languages or variations on particular languages; for example, Armenians speaking the Armenian language and British and Americans speaking distinctive varieties of the English la...

Latvian language
Language of Latvia; with Lithuanian it is one of the two surviving members of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family

Latin
Indo-European language of ancient Italy. Latin has passed through four influential phases: as the language of (1) republican Rome, (2) the Roman Empire, (3) the Roman Catholic Church, and (4) Western European culture, science, philosophy, and law during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. During the third and fourth phases, much Latin voca...

Lallans
Variant of `lowlands` and a name for Lowland Scots, whether conceived as a language in its own right or as a northern dialect of English. Because of its rustic associations, Lallans has been known since the 18th century as `the Doric`, in contrast with the `Attic` usage of Edinburgh (`the Athens of the North`...

Langland, William
English poet. His alliterative The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman (see Piers Plowman) was written in three (or possibly four) versions between about 1367 and 1386. The poem forms a series of allegorical visions, in which Piers develops from the typical poor peasant to a symbol of Jesus, and cond...

Lazio
Region of west central Italy, comprising the provinces of Viterbo, Rieti, Rome, Frosinone, and Latina; area 17,207 sq km/6,644 sq mi; capital Rome; population (2001 est) 4,976,200. It is the third-largest region of Italy, over half its population living in the city of Rome. Products include olives, wine, chemicals, pharmaceutica...

Lawrence, Thomas
English painter. He was the leading portraitist of his day, becoming painter to George III in 1792 and president of the Royal Academy from 1820 to 1830. One of his finest portraits is Queen Charlotte (1789; National Gallery, London). An infant prodigy, he was already successful and celebrated for his likenesses at Bath before...

Lawrence, D(avid) H(erbert)
English writer. His work expresses his belief in emotion and the sexual impulse as creative and true to human nature. However, his ideal of the complete, passionate life is threatened by the advancement of the modern and technological world. His writing first received attention after the publication ...

law
Body of rules and principles under which justice is administered or order enforced in a state or nation. In Western Europe there are two main systems: Roman law and English law. US law is a modified form of English law. Roman law The legal system of ancient Rome is now the basis of civil law, one of the main European legal systems. It began und...

Latvia
Country in northern Europe, bounded east by Russia, north by Estonia, north and northwest by the Baltic Sea, south by Lithuania, and southeast by Belarus. Government Latvia is a multiparty parliamentary democracy. Under its 1922 constitution, Lavtia has a 100-seat national legislature, the Saeima, which is popularly elected by proportional repr...

Latter-day Saint
Member of the Christian sect known as the Mormons

Latin America
Large territory in the Western hemisphere south of the USA, consisting of Mexico, Central America, South America, and the West Indies. The main languages spoken are Spanish (most widespread), Portuguese (in Brazil), and French (in French Guiana, Haiti, and some West Indian islands including Martinique and Guadeloupe)

Lassus, Orlande de
Franco-Flemish composer. His works include polyphonic sacred music, songs, and madrigals, including settings of poems by his friend Pierre de Ronsard such as `Bonjour mon coeur`/`Good day my heart` (1564)

La Spezia
(town) Port in northwest Italy and chief Italian naval base on the Gulf of La Spezia, 80 km/50 mi southeast of Genoa, on the Riviera di Levante; population (2001) 91,400. Industries include shipbuilding, engineering, oil-refining, and the manufacture of electrical goods and textile...

La Rochelle
Fishing port on the Bay of Biscay in western France; population (1999) 76,700, conurbation 116,300. It is the administrative centre of Charente-Maritime département. Industries include shipbuilding, chemicals, motor vehicles, fish-canning, and saw-milling. A Huguenot stronghold, it was taken by Cardinal Riche...

Larkin, Philip Arthur
English poet. His perfectionist, pessimistic verse appeared in The Less Deceived (1955), and in the later volumes The Whitsun Weddings (1964) and High Windows (1974), which confirmed him as one of the most powerful and influential of 20th-century English poets. He edited The Oxfo...

La Rioja
(autonomous community) Autonomous community and province of northern Spain; area 5,034 sq km/1,944 sq mi; population (2001 est) 270,400. The River Ebro passes through the region, but it is a tributary of the Río Oja, which gives its name to the region. A fertile region, La Rio...

La Pampa
Department of central Argentina, bounded by the Río Colorado to the south, and characterized by the plains of the eastern pampas and salt marshes; population (1991) 260,000; area 143,400 sq km/55,367 sq mi; capital Santa Rosa. Cereal crops are grown and there is stock raising

Langtry, Lillie
English actor. She was the mistress of the future Edward VII. She was known as the `Jersey Lily` from her birthplace in the Channel Islands and considered to be one of the most beautiful women of her time

Languedoc-Roussillon
Region of southern France, comprising the départements of Aude, Gard, Hérault, Lozère, and Pyrénées-Orientales; area 27,376 sq km/10,570 sq mi; population (1999 est) 2,295,600. It was created in the 1980s as part of regionalization laws implemented by the French government, and corresponds...

Langobard
Another name for Lombard, member of a Germanic people

Landseer, Edwin Henry
English painter, sculptor, and engraver of animal studies. Much of his work reflects the Victorian taste for sentimental and moralistic pictures, for example Dignity and Impudence (1839; Tate Gallery, London). His sculptures include the lions at the base of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London (1857–67). He wa...

Lancelot of the Lake
In British legend, one of King Arthur's knights of the Round Table. Originally a Celtic folk hero, he was first introduced into the Arthurian cycle of tales in the 12th century. He was designated Queen Guinevere's lover in the early 13th century by French poet Chrétien de Troyes, who made him a symbol of fidelity and chivalrous love

Lancashire
Click images to enlargeCounty of northwest England (since April 1998 Blackpool and Blackburn have been separate unitary authorities). Area 3,040 sq km/1,173 sq mi Towns and cities Preston (administrative headquarters), which forms part of Central Lancashire New Town from 1970 (together with Fulwood, Bamber Bridge, Ley...

Lampedusa, Giuseppe Tomasi di
Italian aristocrat. He was the author of Il gattopardo/The Leopard (1958; translated into English 1960), a novel set in his native Sicily during the period following its annexation by Garibaldi in 1860. It chronicles the reactions of an aristocratic family to social and political upheavals

Lalique, René
French designer and manufacturer of Art Nouveau glass, jewellery, and house interiors. The Lalique factory continues in production at Wingen-sur-Moder, Alsace, under his son Marc and granddaughter Marie-Claude

Lamb, Charles
English essayist and critic. He collaborated with his sister Mary Lamb (1764–1847) on Tales from Shakespeare (1807), and his Specimens of English Dramatic Poets Contemporary with Shakespeare, with Notes (1808) revealed him as a penetrating critic and helped to revive interest in Elizabethan plays. As `...

Lakshmi
Hindu goddess of wealth, beauty, and good fortune, consort of Vishnu, and mother of the world; her festival is Diwali. In temples Lakshmi is usually worshipped as the consort of Vishnu, where together they represent marital harmony, but many Hindus have an image of her at home. She is especially worshipped at Diwali when people hope to bring pr...

Laing, R(onald) D(avid)
Scottish psychoanalyst. He was the originator of the social theory of mental illness; for example, that schizophrenia is promoted by family pressure for its members to conform to standards alien to themselves. His books include The Divided Self (1960) and The Politics of the Family (1971). Influenced by exi...

Laforgue, Jules
French poet. He experimented with new kinds of verse forms, rhythms, and vocabulary, and pioneered free verse. His work, which was also influenced by the Symbolists, is often marked by a lyrical irony. It made a considerable impact on 20th-century poets, including Ezra Pound and T S Eliot. His books of verse include Les Complaintes<...

Lady Day
British name for the Christian festival (25 March) of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary; until 1752 it was the beginning of the legal year in England, and it is still a quarter day (date for the payment of quarterly rates or dues)

Lady
In the UK, the formal title of the daughter of an earl, marquess, or duke, and of any woman whose husband's rank is above that of baronet or knight; the title `Lady` is prefixed to her first name. The wife of a baronet or a knight is also called `Lady`, but uses the title by courtesy only, and has it prefixed to her surn...

lacrosse
Canadian ball game, adopted from the North American Indians, and named after a fancied resemblance of the lacrosse stick (crosse) to a bishop's crosier. Thongs across the curved end of the crosse form a pocket to carry the small rubber ball. The field is approximately 100 m/110 yd long and a minimum of 55 m/60 yd wide in the men's g...

lacquer
Waterproof resinous varnish obtained from Oriental trees Toxicodendron verniciflua, and used for decorating furniture and art objects. It can be applied to wood, fabric, leather, or other materials, with or without added colours. The technique of making and carving small lacquerwork objects was developed in China, probably as ear...

Labour Day
Legal national holiday in honour of workers. In Canada and the USA, Labor Day is celebrated on the first Monday in September. In many countries it coincides with May Day, the first day of May

lay reader
In the Church of England, an unordained member of the church who is permitted under licence from the bishop of the diocese to conduct some public services

Laâyoune
Capital of Western Sahara; population (2004) 183,700. It has expanded from a population of 25,000 in 1970 as a result of Moroccan investment (Morocco lays claim to Western Sahara). Laâyoune is the main urban centre of the country, which was formerly the Spanish Sahara, and lies in an artificial oasis where, through irrigation, cereals and ...

Layamon
English poet. His name means `law man` or `judge`, and according to his own account he was a priest of Areley (now Areley Kings), Worcestershire. He was the author of the Brut, a chronicle of about 16,000 alliterative lines on the history of Britain from the arrival of Brutus, the legendary Roman senator and g...

Lawrence, T(homas) E(dward)
British soldier, scholar, and translator. Appointed to the military intelligence department in Cairo, Egypt, during World War I, he took part in negotiations for an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks, and in 1916 attached himself to the emir Faisal. He became a guerrilla leader of genius, combining raids on Turkish communications with the organi...

law lords
In England, the ten Lords of Appeal in Ordinary who, together with the Lord Chancellor and other peers, make up the House of Lords in its judicial capacity. The House of Lords is the final court of appeal in both criminal and civil cases. Law lords rank as life peers

law courts
Bodies that adjudicate (make judgement) in legal disputes. Civil cases (generally non-criminal disputes that affect the interests of an individual) and criminal cases are usually dealt with by separate courts. In many countries there is a hierarchy of courts that provide an appeal system

Laval, Pierre
French extreme-rightwing politician, he gravitated between the wars from socialism through the centre ground (serving as prime minister and foreign secretary 1931–32 and again 1935–36) to the extreme right. As head of the Vichy government and foreign minister 1942–44, he was responsible for the deportation of Jews and for requisi...

Lausanne
Resort and capital of Vaud canton, west Switzerland, above the north shore of Lake Geneva, 65 km/40 mi from Geneva; population (2001 est) 125,000. It is a major railway junction on the Paris–Milan route through the Simplon Pass. The city is an important financial and tourist centre. Industries include publishing, computing, electronics...

Laud, William
English priest; archbishop of Canterbury from 1633. Laud's High Church policy, support for Charles I's unparliamentary rule, censorship of the press, and persecution of the Puritans all aroused bitter opposition, while his strict enforcement of the statutes against enclosures and of laws regulating wages and prices alienated the propert...

La Tour, Georges de
French painter. Many of his pictures – which range from religious paintings to domestic genre scenes – are illuminated by a single source of light, with deep contrasts of light and shade, as in Joseph the Carpenter about (1645; Louvre, Paris). Little is known of his life. Born in Lunéville, of a noble family, h...

latitude and longitude
Imaginary lines used to locate position on the globe. Lines of latitude are drawn parallel to the Equator, with 0° at the Equator and 90° at the north and south poles. Lines of longitude are drawn at right-angles to these, with 0° (the Prime Meridian) passing through Greenwich, Eng...

Latimer, Hugh
English bishop. After his conversion to Protestantism in 1524 during the Reformation he was imprisoned several times but was protected by cardinal Thomas Wolsey and Henry VIII. After the accession of the Catholic Mary I, he was burned for heresy. Latimer was appointed bishop of Worcester in 1535, but resigned in 1539. Under Edward VI his sermons d...

latex
Fluid of some plants (such as the rubber tree and poppy), an emulsion of resins, proteins, and other organic substances. It is used as the basis for making rubber. The name is also applied to a suspension in water of natural or synthetic rubber (or plastic) particles used in rubber goods, paints, and adhesives

Lassa fever
Acute disease caused by an arenavirus, first detected in 1969, and spread by a species of rat found only in west Africa. It is classified as a haemorrhagic fever and characterized by high fever, headache, muscle pain, and internal bleeding. There is no known cure, the survival rate being less than 50%. In west Africa 300,000 to 500,000 cases oc...

Las Palmas
Province and capital of the Canary Islands and tourist resort on Gran Canaria; population (2000 est) 352,600. It lies in the northeast of the island on a narrow coastal strip, with the Atlantic Ocean on one side and cliffs containing rock houses on the other. Products include sugar, bananas, and tobacco, and the area is an important tourist and...

laser
Click images to enlargeDevice for producing a narrow beam of light, capable of travelling over vast distances without dispersion, and of being focused to give enormous power densities (108 watts per cm2 for high-energy lasers). The laser operates on a principle similar to ...

Lasdun, Denys Louis
English modernist architect. Many of his designs emphasize the horizontal layering of a building, creating the effect of geological strata extending into the surrounding city or landscape. This effect can be seen in his designs for the University of East Anglia, Norwich (1962–68); and the National Theatre (1967–76) on London's Sou...

Lascaux
Cave system near Montignac-sur-Vezère in the Dordogne, southwestern France, with prehistoric wall art, discovered in 1940. It is richly decorated with realistic and symbolic paintings of aurochs (wild cattle), horses, and red deer of the Upper Palaeolithic period (Old Stone Age, about 15...

Las Casas, Bartolomé de
Spanish missionary, historian, and colonial reformer, known as the Apostle of the Indies. He was one of the first Europeans to call for the abolition of Indian slavery in Latin America. He took part in the conquest of Cuba in 1513, but subsequently worked for American Indian freedom in the Spanish co...

laryngitis
Inflammation of the larynx, causing soreness of the throat, a dry cough, and hoarseness. The acute form is due to a virus or other infection, excessive use of the voice, or inhalation of irritating smoke, and may cause the voice to be completely lost. With rest, the inflammation usually subsides in a few days

Larousse, Pierre Athenase
French grammarian and lexicographer. His encyclopedic dictionary, the Grand dictionnaire universel du XIXème siècle/Great Universal 19th-Century Dictionary (1865–76), continues to be published in revised form

La Rochefoucauld, François
French writer. His `Réflexions, ou sentences et maximes morales/Reflections, or Moral Maxims`, published anonymously in 1665, is a collection of brief, epigrammatic, and cynical observations on life and society, with the epigraph `Our virtues are mostly our vices in disguise`. The work is remarkable for its literary exc...

La Plata
Capital of Buenos Aires province, Argentina, on the Río de la Plata 48 km/30 mi southeast of the city of Buenos Aires; population (2001) 563,900. It is 9 km/6 mi from its port, Ensenada, the main outlet for produce from the Pampas. Industries include meat packing and petroleum refining. It has one of the country's best universi...

Lapland
(region, Europe) Region of Europe within the Arctic Circle in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Kola Peninsula of northwest Russia, without political definition. Its chief resources are chromium, copper, iron, timber, hydroelectric power, and tourism. The indigenous population are the Saami (fo...

La Paz
(city) Capital city of Bolivia and of La Paz department, in Murillo province, 3,800 m/12,400 ft above sea level; population (2001 est) 792,500, metropolitan area (2001 est) 1,487,200). It is in a canyon formed by the La Paz River, and is the world's highest capital city. It is the ...

Laois
County of the Republic of Ireland, in the province of Leinster; county town Portlaoise; area 1,720 sq km/664 sq mi; population (2002) 58,800. Other towns are Abbeyleix, Mountmellick, Mountrath, and Portarlington. Laois is flat, except for the Slieve Bloom Mountains in the northwest, the highest point of which is Mount Arderin (529 m...

Lanzhou
Capital of Gansu province, China, on the Huang He River, 190 km/120 mi south of the Great Wall; population (2000) 1,914,200. The city is the centre of a major industrial area, whose industries include oil-refining and the manufacture of chemicals (including petrochemicals), fertilizers, locomotives and rolling stock, machinery, textiles...

Lang, Andrew
Scottish historian and folklore scholar. His writings include historical works; anthropological studies, such as Myth, Ritual and Religion (1887) and The Making of Religion (1898), which involved him in controversy with the anthropologist James G Frazer; novels; and the series of children's book...

Land's End
Promontory of southwest Cornwall, 15 km/9 mi southwest of Penzance, the westernmost point of mainland England. A group of dangerous rocks, the Longships, extend 0.6 km/1 mi out beyond Land's End; and are marked by a lighthouse (1793)

Lanfranc
Italian archbishop of Canterbury from 1070. Following the Norman Conquest, he was the adviser of William (I) the Conqueror. As archbishop he rebuilt Canterbury Cathedral, replaced English clergy with Normans, enforced clerical celibacy, and separated the ecclesiastical from the secular courts. His skill in theological controversy did much to secure...

landlord and tenant
In law, the relationship that exists between an owner of land or buildings (the landlord) and a person granted the right to occupy them (the tenant). The landlord grants a lease or tenancy, which may be for a year, a term of years, a week, or any other definite, limited period

Land Registry, HM
Official body set up in 1925 to register legal rights to land in England and Wales. There has been a gradual introduction, since 1925, of compulsory registration of land in different areas of the country. This requires the purchaser of land to register details of his or her title and all other rights (such as mortgages and easements) relating to th...

Land League
Irish peasant-rights organization, formed in 1879 by Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell to fight against tenant evictions. Through its skilful use of the boycott against anyone who took a farm from which another had been evicted, it forced Gladstone's government to introduce a law in 1881 restricting rents and granting tenants secur...

Lammas
Medieval festival of harvest, celebrated 1 August. At one time it was an English quarter day (date for payment of quarterly rates or dues)

Lancaster
(UK) City in Lancashire, northwest England, on the River Lune; population (2001, Lancaster Urban Area) 47,160. Until 1974 it was the county town of Lancashire (now Preston is the county town). Industries include the manufacture of paper, furniture, plastics, chemicals, textiles, and wall a...

Lambeth Conference
Meeting of bishops of the Anglican communion every ten years, presided over by the archbishop of Canterbury; its decisions on doctrinal matters are not binding

Lamartine, Alphonse Marie Louis de
French poet. He wrote romantic poems, including Méditations poétiques/Poetical Meditations (1820), followed by Nouvelles méditations/New Meditations (1823), and Harmonies poétiques et religieuses/Poetical and Religious Harmonies (1830). His Histoire de...

Lakshadweep
Group of 36 coral islands, 10 inhabited, in the Indian Ocean, 320 km/200 mi off the Malabar coast, forming a Union Territory of India; area 32 sq km/12 sq mi; population (2001 est) 60,600. The administrative headquarters are on Kavaratti Island. Products include coir, copra, and fish. There is a tourist resort on Bangarem, an uninha...

lake dwelling
Prehistoric habitation built on piles driven into the bottom of a lake or at the edge of a lake or river. Such villages are found throughout Europe, in West Africa, South America, Borneo, and New Guinea. Objects recovered from lake dwellings are often unusually well preserved by the mud or peat in which they are buried. Wooden items, wickerwork, wo...

Lake District
Click images to enlargeRegion in Cumbria, northwest England. It contains the principal English lakes, separated by wild uplands rising to many peaks, including Scafell Pike (978 m/3,210 ft), the highest peak in England. The area was made a national park in 1951, covering 2,292 sq km/885 sq mi, and is a popular tou...

Laibach
German name of Ljubljana, a city in Slovenia

lake
Click images to enlargeBody of still water lying in depressed ground without direct communication with the sea. Lakes are common in formerly glaciated regions, along the courses of slow rivers, and in low land near the sea. The main classifications are by origin: glacial lakes, formed by glacial scouring; barrier ...

Lahore
Click images to enlargeCapital of the province of Punjab and second largest city of Pakistan, situated on a tributary of the River Ravi, 50 km/30 mi west of Amritsar in India; population (1998) 5,143,500, (2007 calc) 6,659,500. Lahore is a major industrial centre where about one-fifth of Pakistan's industr...

La Guardia, Fiorello
(Henry) US Republican politician. He was mayor of New York 1933–45. Elected against the opposition of the powerful Tammany Hall Democratic Party organization, he improved the administration of the city, suppressed racketeering, and organized unemployment relief, slum-clearance schemes...

Lagrange, Joseph Louis
Italian-born French mathematician. His Mécanique analytique (1788) applied mathematical analysis, using principles established by Isaac Newton, to such problems as the movements of planets when affected by each other's gravitational force. He presided over the commission that introduced the metric system in 1793

Lagos
Chief port and former capital of Nigeria, located at the western end of an island in a lagoon and linked by bridges with the mainland via Iddo Island; population (2007 est) 9,229,900. Industries include chemicals, metal products, vehicle assembly, textiles, fish, food processing, light engineering, pharmaceuticals, and brewing. Its surrounding ...

Lagerlöf, Selma Ottiliana Lovisa
Swedish novelist. Her first work was the romantic historical novel Gösta Berling's saga/The Story of Göst Berling (1891). The children's fantasy Nils Holgerssons underbara resa/The Wonderful Voyage of Nils Holgersson (1906–07) grew from her background as a schoolteacher. She was t...

Lagash
Sumerian city north of Shatra, Iraq, under independent and semi-independent rulers from about 3000–2700 BC. Besides objects of high artistic value, it has provided about 30,000 clay tablets giving detailed information on temple administration. Lagash was discovered in 1877 and excavated by Ernest de Sarzec, then French consul in Basra

Ladoga, Lake
Largest lake in Europe, and the second largest in the Russian Federation after the Caspian Sea, situated in the far northwest of the Russian Federation, in the Republic of Karelia and Leningrad oblast (region), northeast of the city of St Petersburg. Lake Ladoga covers an area of 17,700 sq km/6,834 sq mi (with its islands, 18,135 sq km/7,00...

Ladakh
Subsidiary range of the Karakoram Mountains and district of northeast Kashmir, India, on the border of Tibet in the upper Indus valley, lying about 3,900 m/12,800 ft above sea level; chief town Leh. After China occupied Tibet in 1951, it made claims on the area, and since 1962 has occupied mo...

lace
Delicate, decorative, openwork textile fabric. Lace is a European craft with centres in Belgium, Italy, France, Germany, and England. Needlepoint or point lace (a development of embroidery) originated in Italy in the late 15th or early 16th centuries. Lace was first made from linen thread and sometimes also with gold, silver, or silk; cotton, w...

Labrador
Area in northeastern Canada, part of the province of Newfoundland, lying between Ungava Bay on the northwest, the Atlantic Ocean on the east, and the Strait of Belle Isle on the southeast; area 266,060 sq km/102,730 sq mi; population (2001 est) 27,900. The most easterly part of the North American mainland, Labrador consists primarily of...

lawrencium
Synthesized, radioactive, metallic element, the last of the actinide series, atomic number 103, relative atomic mass 262. Its only known isotope, Lr-257, has a half-life of 4.3 seconds and was originally synthesized at the University of California at Berkeley in 1961 by bombarding californium with boron nuclei. The original symbol, Lw, was ...

Lavoisier, Antoine Laurent
French chemist. He proved that combustion needs only a part of the air, which he called oxygen, thereby destroying the theory of phlogiston (an imaginary `fire element` released during combustion). With astronomer and mathematician Pierre de Laplace, he showed in 1783 that water is a compound of oxygen and hydrogen. In this way he establi...

Lagrangian points
Five locations in space where the centrifugal and gravitational forces of two bodies neutralize each other; a third, less massive body located at any one of these points will be held in equilibrium with respect to the other two. Three of the points, L1–L3, lie on a line joining the two large bodies. The other two points, L4 and L5, which a...

laburnum
Any of a group of flowering trees or shrubs belonging to the pea family; the seeds develop in pealike pods but are poisonous. L. anagyroides, native to the mountainous parts of central Europe, is often grown as an ornamental tree. The flowers, in long drooping clusters, are bright yellow and appear in early spring; some v...

laurel
Any of a group of European evergreen trees with glossy aromatic leaves, yellowish flowers, and black berries. The leaves of sweet bay or poet's laurel (L. nobilis) are used in cooking. Several species are cultivated worldwide. (Genus Laurus, family Lauraceae....

lavender
Click images to enlargeSweet-smelling purple-flowering herb belonging to the mint family, native to western Mediterranean countries. The bushy low-growing species L. angustifolia has long, narrow, upright leaves of a silver-green colour. The small flowers, borne on spikes, vary in colour...

lapis lazuli
Rock containing the blue mineral lazurite in a matrix of white calcite with small amounts of other minerals. It occurs in silica-poor igneous rocks and metamorphic limestones found in Afghanistan, Siberia, Iran, and Chile. Lapis lazuli was a valuable pigment of the Middle Ages, also used as a gemstone and in inlaying and ornamental work

Lang, Fritz
Austrian-born US film director. His films are characterized by a strong sense of fatalism and alienation. His German films include Metropolis (1926) and M (1931), in which Peter Lorre starred as a child-killer. His US films include Rancho Notorious (1952) and The Big Heat<...

Labanotation
Comprehensive system of accurate dance notation (Kinetographie Laban) devised in 1928 by Rudolf von Laban. It uses a set of graphic symbols arranged on a vertical staff that represents the human body. The varying length of the symbols indicates the timing of the movements. It is commonly used as a means of copyright protection fo...