103 résultats pour "billion"
- Définition et usage du mot: BILLION, substantif masculin.
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Population.
year AD 1, and it took more than 1,500 years to reach the 500 million mark. Growth was not steady but was marked by oscillations dictated by climate, food supply, disease, and war. Starting in the 17th century, great advances in scientific knowledge, agriculture, industry, medicine, and social organization made possible rapid acceleration inpopulation growth. Machines gradually replaced human and animal labor. People slowly acquired the knowledge and means to control disease. By 1900 the worldp...
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Sun - astronomy.
A The Sun’s Place in the Milky Way The Milky Way Galaxy contains about 400 billion stars. All of these stars, and the gas and dust between them, are rotating about a galactic center. Stars that arefarther away from the center move at slower speeds and take longer to go around it. The Sun is located in the outer part of the galaxy, at a distance of 2.6 × 10 17 km (1.6 × 10 17 mi) from the center. The Sun, which is moving around the center at a velocity of 220 km/s (140 mi/s), takes 250 million y...
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Moon - astronomy.
B Volcanic Features Maria, domes, rilles, and a few craters display indisputable characteristics of volcanic origin. Maria are plains of dark-colored rock that cover approximately 40 percent ofthe Moon's visible hemisphere. The maria formed when molten rock erupted onto the surface and solidified between 3.16 billion and 3.96 billion years ago. This rockresembles terrestrial basalt, a volcanic rock type widely distributed on Earth, but the rock that formed the maria has a higher iron content an...
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Solar System - astronomy.
dwarf planets according to the IAU because they have rounded shapes from their own gravity but have not cleared their neighborhoods in space of other objects—bothorbit through the Kuiper Belt, a region beyond Neptune containing thousands of small icy bodies. Pluto and Eris are composed of layers of ice around a rocky core.Ceres qualifies as a dwarf planet because it is spherical but is found in the asteroid belt, a zone between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter that contains thousands of smallrocky...
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Redshift - astronomy.
Astronomers can also use redshift to identify the oldest and most distant objects in the observable universe. Astronomers believe that quasars are the most distantobjects in the universe, because they have some of the largest redshifts. Quasars are objects in space that strongly emit radio waves. Astronomers originally namedthese objects quasars, which stands for quas i-stell ar (or starlike) radio source, because they appear as points of light, like stars, in photographs of the sky. When astro...
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Jamaica - country.
majority, the Church of God, Baptists, Anglicans, Seventh-day Adventists, Pentecostalists, and Roman Catholics predominate. Several well-established Jewish, Muslim,and Hindu communities exist. A number of popular sects, such as Pocomania and Rastafarianism, are a significant and famous feature of the national religious life. C Education School attendance by children between the ages of 6 and 11 is nearly universal, and 84 percent of all 12- to 18-year-olds attend secondary institutions. In 2000...
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Côte d'Ivoire - country.
D Culture Traditional artistic expressions in Côte d’Ivoire include woodcarvings (particularly masks), decorative fabrics, and acrobatic dancing. Urban populations have beengreatly influenced by French culture. The French language is almost universally used in the written literature of Côte d’Ivoire, to the exclusion of the African languages. IV ECONOMY About 60 percent of Côte d’Ivoire’s total labor force is employed in farming and forestry. Government efforts to avoid dependence on a small...
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Kuwait (country) - country.
Oil revenues have allowed Kuwait to build an extensive educational system, yielding a literacy rate of 84 percent. Public school is free and compulsory from the age of 6to 13, and several private schools also teach this age group. Kuwait University (founded in 1966) is also free and offers programs in a wide range of professional andscientific fields at several campuses. Both the extensive library system at Kuwait University and the collection at Kuwait National Museum (1957) were heavily damage...
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Syria - country.
D Education Primary education is free and compulsory for all children aged 6 through 12. Some 78 percent of the adult Syrian population was estimated to be literate in 2005.Primary schools enrolled 2.8 million pupils in the 2000 school year, and 1.1 million students attended secondary schools and vocational institutes. In 1998, 94,110 Syrian students were enrolled in institutes of higher education. Syria has universities in Damascus, Ḩalab, Ḩim ş, and Al L ādhiq īyah. Also in Damascus isthe Ar...
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Conservation.
cancers, Hodgkin’s disease and leukemia. Unfortunately, human activities have greatly reduced biodiversity around the world. The 20th century encompasses one of the greatest waves of extinction, orelimination of species, to occur on the planet. The greatest threat to biodiversity is loss of habitat as humans develop land for agriculture, grazing livestock, industry,and habitation. The most drastic damage has occurred in the tropical rain forests, which cover less than seven percent of the Earth’...
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Great Depression in the United States - U.
prices would continue to rise and they could soon sell their stocks at a profit. The widespread belief that anyone could get rich led many less affluent Americans into the market as well. Investors bought millions of shares of stock “on margin,” arisky practice similar to buying products on credit. They paid only a small part of the price and borrowed the rest, gambling that they could sell the stock at a highenough price to repay the loan and make a profit. For a time this was true: In 1928 the...
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Welfare.
industrializing societies. Governments typically financed social insurance programs with tax funds and direct levies on the wages of potential recipients. Social insurancereplaced part of incomes lost when workers became disabled, were laid off, or had reached an age that forced them out of the labor market. Later, governments of Germany, France, Belgium, Sweden, and other countries developed forms of social insurance that provided population-wide, or universal,coverage. Such forms included chil...
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Tunisia - country.
mixture of Berber and Arab stock, and they regard themselves as Arabs. Nearly everyone speaks Arabic. The population of Tunisia is concentrated in the coastal plain. It is fairly dense in the hilly north, but the arid plateau, basin, and south are thinly settled. About two-thirds of the country’s people live in urban areas. A Principal Cities The capital and largest city of Tunisia is the seaport of Tunis. Other important cities include Sfax, a port and center of trade on the eastern coast; Sūs...
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Jordan (country) - country.
whom belong to the Greek Orthodox Church, make up about 4 percent of the population. Islam is the state religion and Arabic the official language. C Education Jordan has made significant strides in education in recent decades, despite the influx of hundreds of thousands of refugees and the very large share of the nationalbudget assigned to the armed forces. Public education is free and compulsory between the ages of 6 and 15. At the secondary level, about 85 percent of the malechildren and 87 p...
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Eukaryote - biology.
The waste is then expelled through a hole in the fused membrane. In complex animals, cells generate wastes such as urea when nutrients are broken down within cells.These wastes are transported by blood to the kidneys. The kidneys process the waste and produce urine, which is removed from the body through the bladder.Undigested food travels through the tubelike intestines and is eliminated through the digestive system. V EVOLUTIONARY ORIGINS Eukaryotes evolved much later than prokaryotes, whose...
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Costa Rica - country.
protection from future deforestation is not guaranteed. Deforestation places Costa Rica’s rich biodiversity in danger. The country’s location on the cusp between Northand South America and its abundance of tropical forests make it home to a great variety of species, many of them rare and threatened. Deforestation also contributesto the country’s problematic rate of soil erosion. Costa Rica is party to international treaties concerning biodiversity, climate change ( see Global Warming), endangere...
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George Herbert Walker Bush.
Lebanon. More troubling was the disclosure that agents operating under direct White House supervision used profits from the arms sales to buy weapons for thecontras, a group of anti-government Nicaraguan rebels, despite an explicit congressional ban on such aid. Bush later claimed that he opposed the arms-for-hostagesdeal, but offered little evidence to back his claims ( see Iran-Contra Affair). C 1988 Presidential Election While the Reagan-Bush program helped produce prosperity for the wealth...
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George Herbert Walker Bush - USA History.
Lebanon. More troubling was the disclosure that agents operating under direct White House supervision used profits from the arms sales to buy weapons for thecontras, a group of anti-government Nicaraguan rebels, despite an explicit congressional ban on such aid. Bush later claimed that he opposed the arms-for-hostagesdeal, but offered little evidence to back his claims ( see Iran-Contra Affair). C 1988 Presidential Election While the Reagan-Bush program helped produce prosperity for the wealth...
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Biodiversity.
a common molecule, ribonucleic acid (RNA), and most also have deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). These molecules direct the production of proteins—molecules responsiblefor the structure and function of virtually all living cells. This is the evolutionary chain of life. All species are descended from a single common ancestor. From that ancient single-celled microbe, all inherited RNA. As time goesby, species diverge and develop their own peculiar attributes, thus making their own contribution to biodiv...
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Biodiversity - biology.
a common molecule, ribonucleic acid (RNA), and most also have deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). These molecules direct the production of proteins—molecules responsiblefor the structure and function of virtually all living cells. This is the evolutionary chain of life. All species are descended from a single common ancestor. From that ancient single-celled microbe, all inherited RNA. As time goesby, species diverge and develop their own peculiar attributes, thus making their own contribution to biodiv...
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Canada.
Six general landform regions are distinguishable in Canada: the Appalachian Region, the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Lowlands, the Canadian Shield, the Great Plains,the Canadian Cordillera, and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. B1 Appalachian Region and Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Lowlands Eastern Canada consists of the Appalachian Region and the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Lowlands. The Appalachian Region embraces Newfoundland Island, NovaScotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and the G...
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Canada - country.
Six general landform regions are distinguishable in Canada: the Appalachian Region, the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Lowlands, the Canadian Shield, the Great Plains,the Canadian Cordillera, and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. B1 Appalachian Region and Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Lowlands Eastern Canada consists of the Appalachian Region and the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Lowlands. The Appalachian Region embraces Newfoundland Island, NovaScotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and the G...
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Canada - Canadian History.
Six general landform regions are distinguishable in Canada: the Appalachian Region, the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Lowlands, the Canadian Shield, the Great Plains,the Canadian Cordillera, and the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. B1 Appalachian Region and Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Lowlands Eastern Canada consists of the Appalachian Region and the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Lowlands. The Appalachian Region embraces Newfoundland Island, NovaScotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and the G...
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Gambling.
C Lotteries Lotteries are another form of gambling. In a lottery, tickets are sold for a set amount and a share of the proceeds is returned to the winners, usually through a randomdraw. Most games allow players to pick their own numbers or let a computer randomly pick for them. Lotteries offer a wide variety of games, including weekly drawings,instant “scratch” tickets, daily games, and superlottos with prizes increasing until there is a winner. Large lottery prizes sometimes exceed $100 millio...
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Cosmology - astronomy.
In 1917 American scientist Harlow Shapley measured the distance to several groups of stars known as globular clusters. He measured these distances by using amethod developed in 1912 by American astronomer Henrietta Leavitt. Leavitt’s method relates distance to variations in brightness of Cepheid variables, a class of starsthat vary periodically in brightness. Shapley’s distance measurements showed that the clusters were centered around a point far from the Sun. The arrangement of theclusters was...
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Geology.
terminology. Today the geologic time scale is generally agreed upon and used by scientists around the world, dividing time into eons, eras, periods, and epochs. Everyfew years, the numerical time scale is refined based on new evidence, and geologists publish an update. Geologists use several methods to determine geologic time. These methods include physical stratigraphy, or the placement of events in the order of their occurrence,and biostratigraphy, which uses fossils to determine geologic time...
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Pollution.
One of the greatest challenges caused by air pollution is global warming, an increase in Earth’s temperature due to the buildup of certain atmospheric gases such ascarbon dioxide. With the heavy use of fossil fuels in the 20th century, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide have risen dramatically. Carbon dioxide and othergases, known as greenhouse gases, reduce the escape of heat from the planet without blocking radiation coming from the Sun. Because of this greenhouse effect,average glob...
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Galaxy - astronomy.
Astronomers have obtained images of young galaxies using the Keck Telescope in Hawaii and the Hubble Space Telescope, which resides in an orbit high above Earth’satmosphere and thus avoids atmospheric interference. Photos from the HST show galaxies that are as far as 13 billion light-years away from Earth, which means theyformed soon after the universe formed about 13.7 billion years ago. The galaxies appear to be spherical in shape, and may be early precursors of elliptical and spiralgalaxies....
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Sudan - country.
B Principal Cities and Political Divisions The principal city is Khartoum, the capital; other major cities include Omdurman and Khartoum North, major industrial centers, and Port Sudan, a seaport on the RedSea. Sudan is divided into 26 states. C Religion and Language About 70 percent of the people of Sudan are Muslims, some 15 percent are Christians, and most of the remainder follow traditional religions. The people of northernSudan are predominantly Sunni Muslims (Sunni Islam). Most of the pe...
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Libya - country.
junipers and mastic trees are found in the higher elevations. Only a few large mammals are found in Libya. Wildlife includes desert rodents, hyenas, gazelles, and wildcats. Eagles, hawks, and vultures are common. E Environmental Issues Libya has undertaken a number of major irrigation projects intended to ease the country’s water shortage. The most ambitious is the so-called Great Man-Made River(GMMR), a massive 25-year irrigation scheme begun in 1984. The GMMR is a vast water pipeline system d...
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Denmark Facts and Figures.
Infant mortality rate 4 deaths per 1,000 live births (2008 estimate) Population per physician 273 people (2004) Population per hospital bed 250 people (2003) Literacy rateTotal 99 percent (1995) Female Not available Male Not available Education expenditure as a share of gross national product (GNP) 8.6 percent (2002-2003) Number of years of compulsory schooling 10 years (2002-2003) Number of students per teacher, primary school 10 students per teacher (2000-2001) GOVERNMENTForm of g...
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Jamaica Facts and Figures.
Total 73 years (2008 estimate) Female 74.8 years (2008 estimate) Male 71.3 years (2008 estimate) Infant mortality rate 15 deaths per 1,000 live births (2008 estimate) Population per physician 1,176 people (2004) Population per hospital bed 714 people (2003) Literacy rateTotal 88.7 percent (2005 estimate) Female 92.3 percent (2005 estimate) Male 84.9 percent (2005 estimate) Education expenditure as a share of gross national product (GNP) 5.3 percent (2002-2003) Number of years o...
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Morocco Facts and Figures.
Male 69.1 years (2008 estimate) Infant mortality rate 38 deaths per 1,000 live births (2008 estimate) Population per physician 1,943 people (2004) Population per hospital bed 1,250 people (2002) Literacy rateTotal 53.5 percent (2005 estimate) Female 41.5 percent (2005 estimate) Male 65.6 percent (2005 estimate) Education expenditure as a share of gross national product (GNP) 6.6 percent (2002-2003) Number of years of compulsory schooling 9 years (2002-2003) Number of students per...
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Namibia Facts and Figures.
Female 41.6 years (2008 estimate) Male 44.5 years (2008 estimate) Infant mortality rate 47 deaths per 1,000 live births (2008 estimate) Population per physician 3,363 people (2004) Population per hospital bed Not available Literacy rateTotal 85.4 percent (2005 estimate) Female 85.3 percent (2005 estimate) Male 85.5 percent (2005 estimate) Education expenditure as a share of gross national product (GNP) 7.1 percent (2002-2003) Number of years of compulsory schooling 10 years (2001...
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Algeria Facts and Figures.
Male 72.1 years (2008 estimate) Infant mortality rate 28 deaths per 1,000 live births (2008 estimate) Population per physician 1,182 people (2004) Population per hospital bed 476 people (1998) Literacy rateTotal 72.2 percent (2005 estimate) Female 63.6 percent (2005 estimate) Male 80.6 percent (2005 estimate) Education expenditure as a share of gross national product (GNP) 5.1 percent (1996) Number of years of compulsory schooling 9 years (2002-2003) Number of students per teacher...
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Prokaryote - biology.
earliest organisms to evolve, an estimated 3.4 billion to 3.5 billion years ago. The environment of the early Earth lacked oxygen, and cyanobacteria probably usedfermentation (a chemical process performed without the presence of oxygen) to produce the energy molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Cyanobacteria introduced oxygen into the atmosphere through the process of photosynthesis. As the oxygen content in the atmosphere increased over the centuries, bacteria evolved that usedthis oxygen in...
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Cameroon - country.
seminomadic herders of the north. Cattle, goats, and fowl are the most commonly raised animals. B Forestry and Fishing Timber is traditionally one of Cameroon’s most valuable exports, consisting mainly of mahogany, ebony, and teak. The timber cut in 2006 amounted to 11.4 million cu m(401 million cu ft). Most of the fish caught in Cameroon come from the country’s rivers and lakes and are consumed locally. However, deep-sea fishing activity isincreasing, especially from the port of Douala. Some 1...
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Botswana - country.
at birth was 50.2 years, also a significant improvement. The urban population of Botswana has increased rapidly, from 18 percent of the total in 1981 to 51 percent in 2003. Gaborone, the capital, is the largest city and mainbusiness center. Other business centers are Francistown, Selebi-Pikwe, Molepolole, Kanye, and Serowe. Botswana received its name from the country’s principal ethnic group, the Tswana. Other ethnic groups include the Kgalagadi, Kalanga, and Basarwa. There are also asmall numbe...
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Fossil Fuels.
water molecules. This crystalline solid is known as gas hydrate. Because technology for the commercial extraction of gas hydrates has not yet been developed, this typeof fossil fuel is not included in most world energy resource estimates. However, in February 2007 the U.S. Department of Energy completed the drilling of a well toretrieve core samples of gas hydrates found in the Prudhoe Bay region of Alaska’s North Slope. By identifying the nature of these gas hydrates, the Energy Departmenthoped...
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Saturn - astronomy.
measurements of the magnetic field made by the Voyager space probes in the 1980s. Additional Cassini findings reported in March 2007 suggested that particles originating from geysers on the moon Enceladus may provide a partial explanation for thechange. The neutral gas particles become electrically charged and are captured by Saturn’s magnetic field, forming a disk of hot, ionized gas around the planet’sequator. The charged particles interact with the magnetic field and slow down the rotation of...
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Uruguay (country) - country.
Freedom of religion is guaranteed by the constitution of Uruguay. Three-quarters of the people belong to the Roman Catholic Church. There are also sizable Protestantand Jewish congregations. The official language is Spanish, which in Uruguay has been influenced by Italian vocabulary and pronunciation. C Education Uruguay has one of the highest rates of literacy in Latin America, at 98.2 percent of the adult population. Six years of primary education is compulsory, and Uruguay isone of the few n...
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Comet - astronomy.
may exceed the planet Jupiter in size, however. Observations from telescopes on Earth and in space indicate that most of the gases in the coma and tail of a comet are fragmentary molecules, or radicals, of the mostcommon elements in space: hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. The radicals, for example, of CH, NH, and OH may be broken away from the stable molecules CH 4 (methane), NH 3 (ammonia), and H 2O (water), which may exist as ices or more complex, very cold compounds in the nucleus. Al...
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Florida - USA History.
accidentally introduced into the region in the 1880s, and it spread with alarming rapidity throughout the upper reaches of the river. The plant is very difficult toeradicate, and it has also clogged the channels of other Florida rivers. To increase drainage of the Everglades, which drain naturally to Florida Bay and the Gulf ofMexico, a number of drainage channels and canals have been built across southern Florida. Among the rivers flowing from the peninsula to the Gulf of Mexico are the Suwanne...
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Asian Theater
I
INTRODUCTION
Asian Theater, live performance, featuring actors or puppets, native to Asia, a continent with more than 2 billion people of many nations and cultures.
III THEATER IN EAST ASIA Theater in East Asia includes the traditions of China, Japan, and Korea. Most Chinese theater is urban, secular (nonreligious) entertainment, influenced by the ethics of Confucianism. However, a belief in spirits influences rituals performed by ethnic minorities in China, and Buddhism dominates traditional Tibetan performance. Japanesedramatic forms combine native shamanistic performance, secular entertainment, and cultural or religious influences from China and Kore...
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Public Finance.
obtained by borrowing instead of taxation—can be helpful for the economy. For example, when unemployment is high, the government can undertake projects that useworkers who would otherwise be idle. The economy will then expand because more money is being pumped into it. However, deficit spending also can harm theeconomy. When unemployment is low, a deficit may result in rising prices, or inflation. The additional government spending creates more competition for scarce workersand resources and thi...
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Earth (planet).
Milky Way to complete one revolution around the Galaxy’s center. Earth’s axis of rotation is inclined (tilted) 23.5° relative to its plane of revolution around the Sun. This inclination of the axis creates the seasons and causes the height of the Sun in the sky at noon to increase and decrease as the seasons change. The Northern Hemisphere receives the most energy from the Sun when it is tiltedtoward the Sun. This orientation corresponds to summer in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the S...
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Earth (planet) - astronomy.
Milky Way to complete one revolution around the Galaxy’s center. Earth’s axis of rotation is inclined (tilted) 23.5° relative to its plane of revolution around the Sun. This inclination of the axis creates the seasons and causes the height of the Sun in the sky at noon to increase and decrease as the seasons change. The Northern Hemisphere receives the most energy from the Sun when it is tiltedtoward the Sun. This orientation corresponds to summer in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the S...
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Central Processing Unit.
Development of the computer chip started in 1958 when Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments demonstrated that it was possible to integrate the various components of aCPU onto a single piece of silicon. These computer chips were called integrated circuits (ICs) because they combined multiple electronic circuits on the same chip.Subsequent design and manufacturing advances allowed transistor densities on integrated circuits to increase tremendously. The first ICs had only tens of transistorsper chip com...