chess: Computer chess: In February 1967 MacHack VI, a program written by Richard Greenblatt, an MIT undergraduate, drew one game and lost four in a U.S. Chess Federation tournament. Its results improved markedly, from a performance equivalent to a USCF rating of 1243 to reach 1640 by April 1967, about the…

Makhachkala, port and capital of Dagestan republic, southwestern Russia. The city is situated along the western shore of the Caspian Sea, at the northern end of a narrow coastal plain. Founded as the Petrovskoye fortress in 1844, it became Petrovsk Port in 1857 and was renamed in 1921 after the

ukulele: …small guitar derived from the machada, or machete, a four-stringed guitar introduced into Hawaii by the Portuguese in the 1870s. It is seldom more than 24 inches (60 cm) long.

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis was a Brazilian poet, novelist, and short-story writer, a classic master of Brazilian literature, whose art is rooted in the traditions of European culture and transcends the influence of Brazilian literary schools. The son of a house painter of mixed black and

Portugal: Visual and decorative arts: …of which the crèches of Joachim Machado de Castro are the finest, also are outstanding. The Classical and Romantic traditions of Italy and France influenced Machado de Castro in the late 18th century and António Soares dos Reis a century later. A school of primitive painters headed by Nuno Gonçalves…

Eduardo Souto de Moura is a Portuguese architect known for integrating the clean lines of minimalism with such non-minimal elements as colour and the use of local materials. In 2011 he won the Pritzker Architecture Prize, whose jury cited the “intelligence and seriousness” of his work and noted

Raúl Castro: …Díaz-Canel to replace the 82-year-old José Ramón Machado Ventura as first vice president, the designated successor to Raúl.

Gerardo Machado y Morales was a hero in the Cuban War of Independence (1895–98) who was later elected president by an overwhelming majority, only to become one of Cuba’s most powerful dictators. Leaving the army as a brigadier general after the war, he turned to farming and business but remained

Antonio Machado was an outstanding Spanish poet and playwright of Spain’s Generation of ’98. Machado received a doctoral degree in literature in Madrid, attended the Sorbonne, and became a secondary school French teacher. He rejected the modernism of his contemporaries and adopted what he called

Manuel Machado was a Spanish poet and playwright, brother of Antonio Machado. The son of an Andalusian folklorist, he is best known for his popular poetry inspired by traditional folklore, as in Cante hondo (1912; “Singing from the Depths”). He collaborated with his brother on several verse plays,

Antonio Machado was an outstanding Spanish poet and playwright of Spain’s Generation of ’98. Machado received a doctoral degree in literature in Madrid, attended the Sorbonne, and became a secondary school French teacher. He rejected the modernism of his contemporaries and adopted what he called

Bernardino Luís Machado was a Brazilian-born political leader who was twice president of Portugal (1915–17, 1925–26). A professor at Coimbra University, Lisbon, from 1879, Machado was elected twice to the chamber of peers as representative of the university (1890, 1894). He was also minister of

Manuel Machado was a Spanish poet and playwright, brother of Antonio Machado. The son of an Andalusian folklorist, he is best known for his popular poetry inspired by traditional folklore, as in Cante hondo (1912; “Singing from the Depths”). He collaborated with his brother on several verse plays,

J. Paul Getty Museum: …design by the Boston-based architects Rodolfo Machado and Jorge Silvetti. It became home to a research centre and Getty’s collection of ancient Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art. In 2018 the collection was reinstalled chronologically after decades of being displayed thematically.

jacaranda: …tree species of the genus Machaerium of the pea family (Fabaceae), from which some of the commercial rosewoods are obtained. Jacaranda cabinet wood is a rosewood from the tree species Dalbergia nigra, also of the pea family.

Magherafelt: The former Magherafelt district was bounded by the River Bann and Lough (lake) Neagh on the east and by the Sperrin Mountains on the west. It bordered the former districts of Antrim and Ballymena to the east; Coleraine to the north; Limavady, Strabane, and

Magherafelt, town and former district (1973–2015) within the former county of Londonderry, now in Mid Ulster district, central Northern Ireland. Magherafelt town was originally an English-company (Plantation of Ulster) town and is now a marketing centre. Maghera town, 9 miles (14 km) to the

sabre-toothed cat: The Machairodontinae, extant from about 12 million to less than 10,000 years ago, include the more familiar Smilodon as well as Homotherium and Meganteron. Sabre-toothed cats roamed North America and Europe throughout the Miocene and Pliocene epochs (23 million to 2.6 million years ago). By Pliocene…

Machala, city, southwestern Ecuador, in the Pacific coastal lowlands 2 miles (3 km) from the Gulf of Guayaquil. A commercial centre for the surrounding agricultural region, the city trades in bananas, cacao, coffee, and hides. Industrial development is slight, but a technical university was

Guam: …north-central part of the island, Machanao, in the north, and Apotgan, on the west coast.

pottery: China: …(see Banshan ware) and at Machang, both in Gansu province. These were made by hand, the latest specimens with perhaps some assistance from a slow wheel, and are at least as early as 2000 bce.

China: 4th and 3rd millennia bce: …the Banshan (mid-3rd millennium) and Machang (last half of 3rd millennium) cultures. Some two-thirds of the pots found in the Machang burial area at Liuwan in Qinghai, for example, were painted. In the North China Plain, Dahe culture sites contain a mixture of Miaodigou and eastern, Dawenkou vessel types (see…

Gazankulu, former nonindependent Bantustan, northeastern Transvaal, South Africa, designated for the Shangaan and Tsonga people. It was made up of four detached portions of low veld, two of which adjoined Kruger National Park. The Tsonga people, the traditional inhabitants of the area, were joined

Salva Kiir Mayardit: …vice president and SPLM rival, Riek Machar. Machar denied the accusation but soon took lead of rebels fighting against Kiir and the SPLM-led government. Fighting quickly took on an ethnic hue when tensions were inflamed between Kiir’s ethnic group, the Dinka, and Machar’s ethnic group, the Nuer, and the conflict…

Gustav Machatý was a Czech motion-picture director whose films became world-famous for treating mature subjects in a stylishly erotic manner. Machatý began his association with the then-Czechoslovak cinema in his early teens, first as a pianist at theatre houses and then, at age 17, as an actor and

Guillaume de Machaut was a French poet and musician, greatly admired by contemporaries as a master of French versification and regarded as one of the leading French composers of the Ars Nova (q.v.) musical style of the 14th century. It is on his shorter poems and his musical compositions that his

lamb’s lettuce, (Valerianella locusta), weedy plant of the family Caprifoliaceae, native to southern Europe but widespread in grainfields in Europe and North America. It has been used locally as a salad green and as an herb with a nutty tangy flavour. Italian corn salad, Valerianella eriocarpa,

Macheath, fictional character, a handsome highwayman in John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (produced 1728) and a gangster in Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera (1928). In both plays Macheath is an unrepentant thief who is married to the daughter of a fellow

Nelson Mandela: Presidency and retirement: …and in 1998 Mandela married Graca Machel, the widow of Samora Machel, the former Mozambican president and leader of Frelimo.

Samora Machel was a Mozambican politician, who was the first president of independent Mozambique (1975–86). Born more than 200 miles north of Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, Machel received his education through mission schools. He refused to enter a seminary for higher education and instead

Arthur Machen was a Welsh novelist and essayist, a forerunner of 20th-century Gothic science fiction. Machen’s work was deeply influenced by his childhood in Wales and his readings in the occult and metaphysics. He lived most of his life in poverty as a clerk, teacher, and translator. In 1902 he

John Gresham Machen was an American Presbyterian theologian and fundamentalist leader. Born to a prominent family in Baltimore, Machen later studied at Johns Hopkins University, Princeton Theological Seminary, and the universities at Marburg and Göttingen. In 1906 he joined the faculty of the

Kathmandu: …spring, the Shivaratri and the Machendra Jatra with its procession bearing the image of the god Machendra; in late summer, the Gai Jatra (festival of the cow); and, in early autumn, the Indra Jatra, during which the goddess Devi, represented by a young girl, is carried in procession.

ukulele: …small guitar derived from the machada, or machete, a four-stringed guitar introduced into Hawaii by the Portuguese in the 1870s. It is seldom more than 24 inches (60 cm) long.

Robert De Niro: Comedies and later work: …supporting roles in the thrillers Machete (2010) and Limitless (2011), the action drama Killer Elite (2011), and the ensemble romantic comedy New Year’s Eve (2011).

Antonio Banderas: comedy Ruby Sparks (2012); and Machete Kills (2013), an over-the-top action thriller. In The 33 (2015), which was based on a true event, Banderas played a worker who becomes trapped after a mine collapses in Chile. He joined the ensemble of Terrence Malick’s Knight of Cups (2015), portraying a lothario…

Machias, town, seat (1790) of Washington county, eastern Maine, U.S., near the mouth of the Machias River, at the head of Machias Bay, 84 miles (135 km) east-southeast of Bangor. It was the site of an English trading post (1633) that was quickly destroyed by the French. For many years its sheltered

Niccolò Machiavelli: Early life and political career: His father, Bernardo, a doctor of laws, was nevertheless among the family’s poorest members. Barred from public office in Florence as an insolvent debtor, Bernardo lived frugally, administering his small landed property near the city and supplementing his meagre income from it with earnings from the restricted…

Niccolò Machiavelli was an Italian Renaissance political philosopher and statesman, secretary of the Florentine republic, whose most famous work, The Prince (Il Principe), brought him a reputation as an atheist and an immoral cynic. From the 13th century onward, Machiavelli’s family was wealthy and

Machiavellianism, the political theory of the Italian statesman and writer Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527), as presented in his best known work, Il Principe (1532; The Prince). The term Machiavellianism is also used more generally to characterize the view that politics is amoral and that ordinarily

Friedrich Meinecke: …in der neueren Geschichte (1924; Machiavellism; the Doctrine of Raison d’État and Its Place in Modern History) has been read as both a handbook and a condemnation of power politics. In it he questioned the validity of the notion that the sovereign state is the embodiment of the highest ethical…

castle: …defended by portcullises, doors, and machicolations. Portcullises were generally made of oak, were plated and shod with iron, and were moved up and down in stone grooves, clearing or blocking the passage. Machicolations were of two kinds: some were openings in the roof of the passage through which missiles were…

Machida, city, southern Tokyo to (metropolis), east-central Honshu, Japan. It is situated on the southern slopes of the Tama Hills and adjoins the cities of Hachiōji and Tama in the metropolis to the northwest and north, respectively. Kanagawa ken (prefecture) borders the city to the east and

Portland, city, seat (1760) of Cumberland county, southwestern Maine, U.S. The state’s largest city, it is the hub of a metropolitan statistical area that includes the cities of South Portland and Westbrook and the towns of Falmouth, Cape Elizabeth, Cumberland, Freeport, Gorham, Scarborough,

Machilipatnam, city, eastern Andhra Pradesh state, southern India. Masulipatam was the first British trading settlement (1611) on the Bay of Bengal. From 1686 to 1759 the city was held by the French and Dutch, until it was finally ceded to the British, who captured the city and fort from the French

ancient Egypt: The Late period (664–332 bce): …soldiers, whom the Greeks called Machimoi (“Warriors”), and Greek and Carian mercenaries, who formed part of the great emigration from the Aegean in the 7th and 6th centuries bce. Greek pirates raiding the Nile delta coast were induced by Psamtik I to serve in his army and were settled like…

John Machin was an English mathematician, notable for studies in finding the area of a circle. In 1706, he was the first to compute the value of the constant π to 100 decimal places. Machin’s formula for π was adapted by others, including Euler, to extend his result. Machin was a professor of

theatre: Visual and spatial aspects: …the use of the so-called flying machine, the mēchanē (Latin machina), in the 5th century is given in the comedies of Aristophanes; a character in his play Peace ascends to heaven on a dung beetle and appeals to the scene shifter not to let him fall. The mēchanē consisted of…

Smashing Pumpkins: …reviews but sold poorly, and MACHINA/The Machines of God (2000) sounded as if Corgan were going it alone, which he was by December 2000, when the group broke up. A parting shot, Machina II/The Friends & Enemies of Modern Music (2000), was distributed exclusively to select fans who, with Corgan’s…

machine, device, having a unique purpose, that augments or replaces human or animal effort for the accomplishment of physical tasks. This broad category encompasses such simple devices as the inclined plane, lever, wedge, wheel and axle, pulley, and screw (the so-called simple machines) as well as

Fernand Léger: He developed “machine art,” a style characterized by monumental mechanistic forms rendered in bold colours.

submachine gun, lightweight automatic small-arms weapon chambered for relatively low-energy pistol cartridges and fired from the hip or shoulder. Most types utilize simple blowback actions. Using cartridges of such calibres as .45 inch or 9 mm, they usually have box-type magazines that hold from 10

machine language, the numeric codes for the operations that a particular computer can execute directly. The codes are strings of 0s and 1s, or binary digits (“bits”), which are frequently converted both from and to hexadecimal (base 16) for human viewing and modification. Machine language

human-factors engineering: The human-machine model: …is referred to as a machine display, a signal that tells the individual something about the condition or the functioning of the machine. A display may be the position of a pointer on a dial, a light flashing on a control panel, the readout of a digital computer, the sound…

papermaking: Book paper: Machine finish has a medium-smooth surface obtained for this finish from a calender stack at the dry end of the machine. Machine finish book is a relatively inexpensive general utility paper. It is principally used for books, catalogs, circulars, and other matter using line etchings.…

machine gun, automatic weapon of small calibre that is capable of sustained rapid fire. Most machine guns are belt-fed weapons that fire from 500 to 1,000 rounds per minute and will continue to fire as long as the trigger is held back or until the supply of ammunition is exhausted. The machine gun

Gerard Butler: In Machine Gun Preacher (2011), which was based on a true story, Butler portrayed a former convict and drug addict who, after finding religion, travels to war-torn Sudan to build an orphanage. Returning to the drama that had sparked his acting career, he next took on…

information processing: Machine indexing: The subject analysis of electronic text is accomplished by means of machine indexing, using one of two approaches: the assignment of subject descriptors from an unlimited vocabulary (free indexing) or their assignment from a list of authorized descriptors (controlled indexing). A collection of…

Jean Cocteau: Influence of Radiguet: …to be his greatest play, La Machine infernale, a treatment of the Oedipus theme that is very much his own. In these two works he moved into closer contact with the great myths of humanity.

machine language, the numeric codes for the operations that a particular computer can execute directly. The codes are strings of 0s and 1s, or binary digits (“bits”), which are frequently converted both from and to hexadecimal (base 16) for human viewing and modification. Machine language

machine learning, in artificial intelligence (a subject within computer science), discipline concerned with the implementation of computer software that can learn autonomously. Expert systems and data mining programs are the most common applications for improving algorithms through the use of

submachine gun, lightweight automatic small-arms weapon chambered for relatively low-energy pistol cartridges and fired from the hip or shoulder. Most types utilize simple blowback actions. Using cartridges of such calibres as .45 inch or 9 mm, they usually have box-type magazines that hold from 10

automation: Machine programming: The programmed instructions determine the set of actions that is to be accomplished automatically by the system. The program specifies what the automated system should do and how its various components must function in order to accomplish the desired result. The content of…

hand tool: Invention of the screw: Metal screws were called machine, or machinery, screws since they were made of metal and mated with threaded holes.

tool and die making: …19th century, brought the modern machine shop into being. Then, as now, the independent machine shop was called a job shop, which meant that it had no product of its own but served large industrial facilities by fabricating tooling, machines, and machinepart replacements. Eventually, some machine shops began to specialize…

science fiction: Utopias and dystopias: Forster’s much-anthologized story The Machine Stops (1909) was written as a counterblast to Wellsian technical optimism. The story depicts a soulless push-button, heavily networked world. The sudden collapse of Forster’s dystopia supplies motive force to the plot—a scheme so common in science fiction that it is known as…

machine tool, any stationary power-driven machine that is used to shape or form parts made of metal or other materials. The shaping is accomplished in four general ways: (1) by cutting excess material in the form of chips from the part; (2) by shearing the material; (3) by squeezing metallic parts

linguistics: Computational linguistics: …by research groups working on machine translation and information retrieval in the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, France, and a few other countries in the decade between the mid-1950s and the mid-1960s. But much of the original impetus for this work disappeared, for a time at least, in…

computer vision, field of artificial intelligence in which programs attempt to identify objects represented in digitized images provided by cameras, thus enabling computers to “see.” Much work has been done on using deep learning and neural networks to help computers process visual information.

Nelson Algren: Its hero is Frankie Machine, whose golden arm as a poker dealer is threatened by shakiness connected with his drug addiction. In A Walk on the Wild Side (1956; filmed 1962) Algren returned to the 1930s in a picaresque novel of New Orleans bohemian life. After 1959 he…

political machine, in U.S. politics, a party organization, headed by a single boss or small autocratic group, that commands enough votes to maintain political and administrative control of a city, county, or state. The rapid growth of American cities in the 19th century, a result of both

library: The British Library: …Congress in the Project for Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC), which provides on-line access to the catalogs of the current acquisitions of the British Library Reference Division and the Library of Congress.

library: Vehicles for catalogs: …is demonstrated by the revised Machine-Readable Cataloging Project, known since its revision in 1968 as MARC II. Library users find no difficulty in consulting such on-line catalogs, and many prefer them to the more cumbersome, if more familiar, form of cards in drawers. Not only do they enable library patrons…

machine-tractor station, in the Soviet Union, state-owned institution that rented heavy agricultural machinery (e.g., tractors and combines) to a group of neighbouring kolkhozy (collective farms) and supplied skilled personnel to operate and repair the equipment. The stations, which became

machine, device, having a unique purpose, that augments or replaces human or animal effort for the accomplishment of physical tasks. This broad category encompasses such simple devices as the inclined plane, lever, wedge, wheel and axle, pulley, and screw (the so-called simple machines) as well as

Horiguchi Sutemi: The Machinery Hall, which he designed for the Tokyo Peace Exhibition of 1922, was among the important works of the Secessionist group of young architects, who rebelled against the tradition of formalism in Japan. Shortly thereafter, Horiguchi went to Europe for two years, visiting the leading…

Philadelphia Centennial Exposition: …point of the exposition was Machinery Hall, where viewers marveled at the working models of steam engines and dynamos and celebrated the advent of the United States as an internationally important industrial power. Although some critics were offended by the ornate and grandiose symptoms of the “Gilded Age” and by…

insurance: Miscellaneous insurance: Boiler and machinery insurance has several distinctive features. A substantial portion of the premium collected is used for inspection services rather than loss protection. Second, the boiler policy provides that its coverage will be in excess of any other applicable insurance. In this sense, it…

hand tool: Invention of the screw: Metal screws were called machine, or machinery, screws since they were made of metal and mated with threaded holes.

Jean Tinguely: …entitled “Machines à peindre” (“Painting Machines”); these robotlike machines continuously painted pictures of abstract patterns to the accompaniment of self-produced sounds and noxious odours. The 8-foot-long “painting machine” that Tinguely set up at the first Paris Biennale in 1959 produced some 40,000 different paintings for exhibition visitors who inserted a…

Ian McEwan: In Machines Like Me (2019), a love triangle develops between a couple and a male robot. Inspired by Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, the novella The Cockroach (2019) concerns Brexit (the British exit from the European Union). In 2022 McEwan published his 18th novel, Lessons,

Western architecture: Construction in iron and glass: In the Palais des Machines (at the 1889 exhibition) by Ferdinand Dutert and Victor Contamin, a series of three-hinged trussed arches sprang from small points across a huge space, 385 feet (117 metres) long and 150 feet (45 metres) high. Similar spaces had already been created in…

Western architecture: Construction in iron and glass: In the Palais des Machines (at the 1889 exhibition) by Ferdinand Dutert and Victor Contamin, a series of three-hinged trussed arches sprang from small points across a huge space, 385 feet (117 metres) long and 150 feet (45 metres) high. Similar spaces had already been created in…

plastic: Machining: Rigid thermoplastics and thermosets can be machined by conventional processes such as drilling, sawing, turning on a lathe, sanding, and other operations. Glass-reinforced thermosets are machined into gears, pulleys, and other shapes, especially when the number of parts does not justify construction of a…

machine tool: Machining centres: A further development in the automation of machine tools is the “machining centre,” usually a vertical milling machine fitted with automatic tool-changing facilities and capable of several axes of control. The tools, of which there can be more than 100, are generally housed in…

Christian Bale: …for the grim psychological thriller The Machinist (2004), in which he played an insomniac factory worker who has not slept in a year and may be losing his mind. He regained the weight to portray the dual role of Bruce Wayne and Batman in Batman Begins (2005). The new take…

machismo, Exaggerated pride in masculinity, perceived as power, often coupled with a minimal sense of responsibility and disregard of consequences. In machismo there is supreme valuation of characteristics culturally associated with the masculine and a denigration of characteristics associated with

Latin jazz: … with the establishment of the Machito and the Afro-Cubans orchestra, under the musical directorship of Cuban-born trumpeter Mario Bauzá. For many jazz critics, Bauzá’s tune “Tanga,” one of the Machito orchestra’s hits dating to the early 1940s, was the first true example of the music that is now known as…

Dhaulpur: Several temples surround nearby Machkund Lake, on the shores of which annual religious fairs are held. Pop. (2001) 92,308; (2011) 125,989.

Sileru River, river, southeast-central India. It is situated at the eastern limit of the Dandakaranya physiographic region and has a course of about 190 miles (305 km). The Sileru rises as the Machkund River in the Eastern Ghats in northeastern Andhra Pradesh state and flows northward into Jalaput

Mechelen, municipality, Flanders Region, north-central Belgium. It lies along the Dijle River, a few miles north-northeast of Brussels. St. Rumoldus (Rombold) was said to have come there in 756. In the Middle Ages it was called Machlina (Mechlinia) and belonged to the prince-bishops of Liège

airspeed indicator: …the speed of sound, called Machmeters, are used.

Hebron: At Hebron Abraham purchased the Cave of Machpelah (Hebrew: Meʿarat ha-Makhpelah) as a burial place for his wife, Sarah, from Ephron the Hittite (Genesis 23); this became a family sepulchre. According to tradition, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with their wives Sarah, Rebekah, and Leah, were buried in the cave. After…

Assus, ancient Greek city of the Troad, located on the coast of what is now northwestern Turkey, with the island of Lesbos lying about 7 miles (11 km) offshore to the south. Founded by Aeolic colonists from Methymna in Lesbos in the 1st millennium bc, the city was constructed on the terraced

Robert Machray was a Scottish-born archbishop of Rupert’s Land in northern and western Canada. He studied at Aberdeen and at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, and became a Church of England priest in 1856. He was elected to a fellowship at Cambridge, remaining there until 1865, when he was made

Machu Picchu, site of ancient Inca ruins located about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Cuzco, Peru, in the Cordillera de Vilcabamba of the Andes Mountains. It is perched above the Urubamba River valley in a narrow saddle between two sharp peaks—Machu Picchu (“Old Peak”) and Huayna Picchu (“New

Alhambra: History: …an Italianate palace designed by Pedro Machuca in 1526. In 1812 some of the towers were blown up by a French force under Horace-François-Bastien Sébastiani during the Peninsular War (War of Independence), and the rest of the buildings narrowly escaped the same fate. In 1821 an earthquake caused further damage…

Sileru River, river, southeast-central India. It is situated at the eastern limit of the Dandakaranya physiographic region and has a course of about 190 miles (305 km). The Sileru rises as the Machkund River in the Eastern Ghats in northeastern Andhra Pradesh state and flows northward into Jalaput

Machu Picchu, site of ancient Inca ruins located about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Cuzco, Peru, in the Cordillera de Vilcabamba of the Andes Mountains. It is perched above the Urubamba River valley in a narrow saddle between two sharp peaks—Machu Picchu (“Old Peak”) and Huayna Picchu (“New

Machu Picchu, site of ancient Inca ruins located about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Cuzco, Peru, in the Cordillera de Vilcabamba of the Andes Mountains. It is perched above the Urubamba River valley in a narrow saddle between two sharp peaks—Machu Picchu (“Old Peak”) and Huayna Picchu (“New