psychometry, process whereby facts or impressions about a person or thing are received through contact with an object associated with the subject of the impressions. Rings, photographs, and similar tokens are often used, but sometimes the physical presence of a person may bring about images or

Man Ray: …to the pendulum, was called Object to Be Destroyed (1923)—which it was by anti-Dada rioters in 1957.

aesthetics: Three approaches to aesthetics: The philosophical study of the aesthetic object. This approach reflects the view that the problems of aesthetics exist primarily because the world contains a special class of objects toward which we react selectively and which we describe in aesthetic terms. The usual class singled out as prime aesthetic objects is…

perception: …correspondence between percepts and the physical objects to which they ordinarily relate. How accurately, for example, does the visually perceived size of an object match its physical size as measured (e.g., with a yardstick)?

database: Object-oriented databases store and manipulate more complex data structures, called “objects,” which are organized into hierarchical classes that may inherit properties from classes higher in the chain; this database structure is the most flexible and adaptable.

computer programming language: Object-oriented languages: Object-oriented languages help to manage complexity in large programs. Objects package data and the operations on them so that only the operations are publicly accessible and internal details of the data structures are hidden. This information hiding made large-scale programming easier by allowing…

object-oriented programming, use of predefined programming modular units (objects, classes, subclasses, and so forth) in order to make programming faster and easier to maintain. Object-oriented languages help to manage complexity in large programs. Objects package data and the operations on them so

computer programming language: Object-oriented languages: Object-oriented languages help to manage complexity in large programs. Objects package data and the operations on them so that only the operations are publicly accessible and internal details of the data structures are hidden. This information hiding made large-scale programming easier by allowing…

Melanie Klein: Her object-relations theory related ego development during this period to the experience of various drive objects, physical objects that were associated with psychic drives. In early development, she found, a child relates to parts rather than to complete objects—for example, to the breast rather than to…

Caryl Churchill: …Royal Court Theatre, Churchill wrote Objections to Sex and Violence (1974), which, though not well-reviewed, led to her successful association with David Hare and Max Stafford-Clark’s Joint Stock Company and with Monstrous Regiment, a feminist group.

microscope: The objective: The optics of the microscope objective are defined by the focal length, N.A., and field of view. Objectives that have been corrected for aberrations are further defined by the wavelength requirements and the tube length of the microscope.

objective correlative, literary theory first set forth by T.S. Eliot in the essay “Hamlet and His Problems” and published in The Sacred Wood (1920). According to the theory, The term was originally used in the 19th century by the painter Washington Allston in his lectures on art to suggest the

evidence: Real evidence: The remaining form of evidence is so-called real evidence, also known as demonstrative or objective evidence. This is naturally the most direct evidence, since the objects in question are inspected by the judge or jury themselves. Problems arise in this area over who…

linear programming: …the linear expression (called the objective function)subject to a set of constraints expressed as inequalities:

Michael Oakeshott: …philosophy is a form of objective idealism, which argues, against materialism, that our experience of reality is mediated by thought while also rejecting the notion that reality is solely subjective and thus relative (subjective idealism).

microscope: The objective: The optics of the microscope objective are defined by the focal length, N.A., and field of view. Objectives that have been corrected for aberrations are further defined by the wavelength requirements and the tube length of the microscope.

Western philosophy: The idealism of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel: Therefore, what began in Hegel as a metaphysics of the Absolute ended by becoming a total philosophy of human culture.

tinnitus: …the most common form, and objective, which is relatively rare. In subjective tinnitus, only the person with the condition can hear the noise. In objective tinnitus, a physician can detect the ringing, buzzing, or clicking sound.

Raoul Walsh: At Warner Brothers: The Roaring Twenties, High Sierra, and White Heat: Their next collaboration, Objective, Burma! (1945), was one of the decade’s best—and grittiest—war movies, with Flynn starring in one of his finest performances as the leader of 50 paratroopers trapped behind Japanese lines in the jungle.

objectivism, the theory or practice of objective art or literature. The term was used by the poet William Carlos Williams in the 1930s to describe a movement in which emphasis was placed on viewing poems as objects that could be considered and analyzed in terms of mechanical features. According to

objectivism, philosophical system identified with the thought of the 20th-century Russian-born American writer Ayn Rand and popularized mainly through her commercially successful novels The Fountainhead (1943) and Atlas Shrugged (1957). Its principal doctrines consist of versions of metaphysical

Ayn Rand: The Collective and the Nathaniel Branden Institute: …the monthly Objectivist Newsletter (renamed The Objectivist in 1966). Meanwhile, Rand’s fame grew apace with the brisk sales of her novels. She was invited to speak at numerous colleges and universities and was interviewed on television talk shows and on the news program 60 Minutes. Growing into her role as…

Ayn Rand: The Collective and the Nathaniel Branden Institute: …the monthly Objectivist Newsletter (renamed The Objectivist in 1966). Meanwhile, Rand’s fame grew apace with the brisk sales of her novels. She was invited to speak at numerous colleges and universities and was interviewed on television talk shows and on the news program 60 Minutes. Growing into her role as…

New Journalism: New Journalism and the question of truth: …the New Journalism was replacing objectivity with a dangerous subjectivity that threatened to undermine the credibility of all journalism. They feared that reporters would be tempted to stray from the facts in order to write more dramatic stories, by, for example, creating composite characters (melding several real people into one…

César: …focused on “found objects” (objets trouvés). His first solo art show was in 1954 at the Galerie Lucien Durand in Paris, and his first compression was exhibited in 1958.

Vladimir Mayakovsky: …completed two major poems, “Oblako v shtanakh” (1915; “A Cloud in Trousers”) and “Fleyta pozvonochnik” (written 1915, published 1916; “The Backbone Flute”). Both record a tragedy of unrequited love and express the author’s discontent with the world in which he lived. Mayakovsky sought to “depoetize” poetry, adopting the language…

Joris-Karl Huysmans: …story attached; and L’Oblat (1903; The Oblate), set in the Benedictine abbey of Ligugé, near Poitiers, in the neighbourhood in which Huysmans lived in 1899–1901 as an oblate (lay monk).

oblate, (from Latin oblatus, “one offered up”), in Roman Catholicism, a lay person connected with a religious order or institution and living according to its regulations; a minor dedicated by his parents to become a monk according to the Benedictine Rule; or a member of either the Oblates of Mary

ellipsoid: …than c, the spheroid is oblate; if less, the surface is a prolate spheroid.

Joris-Karl Huysmans: …story attached; and L’Oblat (1903; The Oblate), set in the Benedictine abbey of Ligugé, near Poitiers, in the neighbourhood in which Huysmans lived in 1899–1901 as an oblate (lay monk).

Léon-Gustave Dehon: …Catholic priest who founded the Congregation of the Priests of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a congregation of priests and brothers dedicated to spreading the apostolate of the Sacred Heart.

sacrifice, a religious rite in which an object is offered to a divinity in order to establish, maintain, or restore a right relationship of a human being to the sacred order. It is a complex phenomenon that has been found in the earliest known forms of worship and in all parts of the world. The

Roman Catholicism: The Eucharist: …Church distinguishes the Eucharist as sacrifice (mass) and sacrament (communion).

Latin American literature: Romanticism: …body of literature that included Rafael Obligado’s Santos Vega (1887), on a famous minstrel, and the comical Fausto (1866; Faust) by Estanislao del Campo. The Caribbean counterpart of this literature was the Cuban antislavery novel, in which the wretched living conditions of African slaves toiling in the production of sugar…

bacteria: Oxygen: …oxygen to grow are called obligate aerobic bacteria. In most cases, these bacteria require oxygen to grow because their methods of energy production and respiration depend on the transfer of electrons to oxygen, which is the final electron acceptor in the electron transport reaction. Obligate aerobes include Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas…

aerobe: …the absence of oxygen are obligate, or strict, anaerobes. Some species, called facultative anaerobes, are able to grow either with or without free oxygen. Certain others, able to grow best in the presence of low amounts of oxygen, are called microaerophiles.

nutrition: Carnivores: cats (family Felidae), are obligate carnivores, meaning they cannot obtain all the nutrients that they need from the plant kingdom and bacteria. In particular, obligate carnivores lack the enzyme needed to split carotene, obtained from plants, into vitamin A. Instead, these animals obtain vitamin A from the liver of…

bacteria: Nutritional requirements: Some bacteria are obligate parasites and grow only within a living host cell. Rickettsia and Chlamydia, for example, grow in eukaryotic cells, and Bdellovibrio grow in bacterial cells. Treponema pallidum is difficult, if not impossible, to grow in culture, probably because it requires low oxygen tension and low…

bacteria: Temperature: Obligate psychrophiles, which have been isolated from Arctic and Antarctic ocean waters and sediments, have optimum growth temperatures of about 10 °C (50 °F) and do not survive if exposed to 20 °C (68 °F). The majority of psychrophilic bacteria are in the gram-negative genera…

Fabales: Classification of Fabaceae: The most effective kind of obligate self-pollination, however, is that of cleistogamous flowers, which do not open and thus prevent the entry of insects. Lespedeza and many other genera of Papilionoideae legumes bear both kinds of flowers, generally on the same plant. Enforced inbreeding serves to fix and maintain successful…

human evolution: Background and beginnings in the Miocene: Indeed, obligate terrestrial bipedalism (that is, the ability and necessity of walking only on the lower limbs) is the defining trait required for classification in the human tribe, Hominini.

applied logic: Deontic logic and the logic of agency: …concepts include the notions of obligation (“ought”), permission (“may”), and prohibition (“must not”), and related concepts. The contemporary study of deontic logic was founded in 1951 by G.H. von Wright after the failure of an earlier attempt by Ernst Mally.

property law: Rome: …law and the law of obligations (contract and delict). This latter separation was to become characteristic of all the Western legal systems, while the specific decisions that the Roman jurists made about what was to be characterized as a necessary part of ownership became characteristic of many Western legal systems,…

ought implies can, in ethics, the principle according to which an agent has a moral obligation to perform a certain action only if it is possible for him or her to perform it. In other words, if a certain action is impossible for an agent to perform, the agent cannot, according to the principle,

holy days of obligation, in the Roman Catholic Church, religious feast days on which Catholics must attend mass and refrain from unnecessary work. Although all Sundays are sanctified in this way, the term holy days usually refers to other feasts that must be observed in the same manner as Sunday.

history of logic: The properties of terms and discussions of fallacies: …kind of disputation called “obligationes,” the exact purpose of which is still in question.

intergenerational ethics, branch of applied ethics that considers whether present-day humanity is morally obligated to future generations to aim for environmental sustainability. The long-term nature of many environmental problems has forced moral philosophy to pay closer attention to relations

civil law: Swiss law: …1907, together with a separate Code of Obligations, went into effect in 1912. These new federal codes superseded the earlier codes of the separate cantons (which had generally been patterned after the Austrian or the French model). The drafters of the Swiss code took advantage of earlier experiences with codification…

mutualism: and termites exhibit obligative mutualism, a strict interdependency, in which the protozoans digest the wood ingested by the termites; neither partner can survive under natural conditions without the other.

mutualism: and termites exhibit obligative mutualism, a strict interdependency, in which the protozoans digest the wood ingested by the termites; neither partner can survive under natural conditions without the other.

referendum and initiative: The referendum may be obligatory or optional. Under the obligatory type, a statute or constitution requires that certain classes of legislative action be referred to a popular vote for approval or rejection. For example, constitutional amendments proposed by legislatures in most of the states of the United States are…

seppuku: Obligatory seppuku refers to the method of capital punishment for samurai to spare them the disgrace of being beheaded by a common executioner. That practice was prevalent from the 15th century until 1873, when it was abolished. Great emphasis was placed on proper performance of…

insurance: Suretyship: …is the person bonded; the obligee, the person who is protected; and the surety, the person or corporation agreeing to reimburse the obligee for any losses stemming from failures or dishonesty of the principal. The bond covers events within the control of the person bonded, whereas insurance in the strict…

fracture: …of the bone, while an oblique fracture crosses the bone axis at approximately a 45 degree angle. A spiral fracture, characterized by a helical break, commonly results from a twisting injury.

tactics: Combined infantry and cavalry: …outflanking the enemy, and the oblique approach (in which one wing stormed the enemy while the other was held back). In addition, the phalanx began to be combined with other kinds of troops, such as light infantry (javelin men and slingers) and cavalry. Indeed, the history of Greek warfare can…

perspective scenery: Angle perspective was an 18th-century refinement of perspective scenery. Several vanishing points were set at the centre-back of the stage and off to the sides, so that the scenery, receding in several directions, was pictured at an angle to the viewer.

drafting: Pictorial views: …the pictorial representation achieved by oblique projection, in which the principal surface of the object is considered to be in the plane of the paper and thus is represented in true size and shape. The angle the receding axis makes with the horizontal lines of the drawing is chosen arbitrarily…

half rhyme, in prosody, two words that have only their final consonant sounds and no preceding vowel or consonant sounds in common (such as stopped and wept, or parable and shell). The device was common in Welsh, Irish, and Icelandic verse years before it was first used in English by Henry Vaughan.

history of logic: The 17th century: …“oblique” syllogisms because of the oblique (non-nominative) case that is used to express them in Latin. An example is: “The square of an even number is even; 6 is even; therefore, the square of 6 is even.” The technique of dealing with such inferences involved rewriting a premise so that…

airplane: Wing types: …military applications, as does the oblique wing, in which the wing is attached at an angle of about 60° as an alternative to the standard symmetrical wing sweep.

muscle: Diversity of muscle: …bands as in Figure 2; obliquely striated muscle, in which the filaments are staggered, making the bands oblique (Figure 3); and smooth muscle, in which the filaments are arranged irregularly. In vertebrates, all voluntary muscles are striated, and all involuntary muscles are smooth, except for cardiac muscle, which is involuntary…

astronomy: The Islamic world: …Baghdad astronomers observed that the obliquity of the ecliptic had decreased from the value given in Ptolemy’s Almagest. The obliquity of the ecliptic is the angle between the celestial equator and the tropic of Cancer. It corresponds to the northward displacement of the Sun between the equinox and the summer…

Tom Cruise: …survivor in the sci-fi adventure Oblivion (2013). He then portrayed a glib military public relations officer who is repeatedly killed and resurrected in the comic alien-invasion romp Edge of Tomorrow (2014). In 2017 Cruise starred in the action-horror film The Mummy and the antic drama American Made. For Top Gun:…

Charles Wright: …Poems (2012), Caribou (2014), and Oblivion Banjo: The Poetry of Charles Wright (2019).

Edward Hyde, 1st earl of Clarendon: Lord chancellor.: …Hyde pressed for a generous Act of Oblivion, which spared most republicans from royalist vengeance, and for speedy provision of royal revenue. He hastened the disbanding of the army and strove to create a spirit of accommodation among religious leaders. He was not successful, however; the Parliament elected in 1661…

Fridrikh Markovich Ermler: …films include Oblomok imperii (1929; Fragment of an Empire), a classic of Soviet silent films that views the changes in Russia through the eyes of a man who had lost, then regained, his memory; Krestyanye (1935; Peasants), also a classic, a grand-scale film on collectivization that mirrors peasant folkways with…

Oblomov, novel by Russian writer Ivan Goncharov, published in 1859. The work is a powerful critique of 19th-century Russia, contrasting aristocrats with the merchant class and condemning the feudal system. Its hero, Oblomov, is a generous but indecisive young nobleman who loses the woman he loves

Ivan Aleksandrovich Goncharov: …character derives the Russian term oblomovshchina, epitomizing the backwardness, inertia, and futility of 19th-century Russian society. Goncharov’s third novel, Obryv (1869; The Precipice, 1915), though a remarkable book, is inferior to Oblomov.

number game: Polygonal and other figurate numbers: Oblong numbers are the numbers of dots that can be placed in rows and columns in a rectangular array, each row containing one more dot than each column. The first few oblong numbers are 2, 6, 12, 20, and 30. This series of numbers is…

basic oxygen process: …in North America and the OBM (from the German, Oxygen bodenblasen Maxhuette, or “oxygen bottom-blowing furnace”) in Europe. In this system, oxygen is injected with lime through nozzles, or tuyeres, located in the bottom of the vessel. The tuyeres consist of two concentric tubes: oxygen and lime are introduced through…

Renovated Church, federation of several reformist church groups that took over the central administration of the Russian Orthodox church in 1922 and for over two decades controlled many religious institutions in the Soviet Union. The term Renovated Church is used most frequently to designate the

ancient Rome: Citizenship and politics in the middle republic: …omens in a procedure called obnuntiatio. In addition, the days of the year on which legislative assemblies could be held were reduced. As conservative senators worked to restrain the democratic element in the political processes, the plebeians sought to expand their freedom. Voting in electoral and judicial assemblies had been…

Inner Mongolia: Cultural life: …temple festivals, there is the Obo (shrine) Festival, held in the fifth month of the lunar year. Toward the end of the ceremonies the festival takes a joyful course without restraint. There are wrestling and archery competitions, and a race is held in which the young men of the tribes…

Obodrite, member of a people of the Polab group, the northwesternmost of the Slavs in medieval Europe. The Obodrites (sometimes called the Bodryci, from bodry, “brave”) inhabited the lowland country between the lower Elbe River and the Baltic Sea, the area north and northeast of Hamburg in what is

air warfare: Strategic bombing: …radar-beam systems called Gee and Oboe to guide its Lancaster and Halifax bombers to cities on the Continent. In addition, the bombers carried a radar mapping device, code-named H2S, that displayed reasonably detailed pictures of coastal cities such as Hamburg, where a clear contrast between land and water allowed navigators…

oboe, treble woodwind instrument with a conical bore and double reed. Though used chiefly as an orchestral instrument, it also has a considerable solo repertoire. Hautbois (French: “high [i.e., loud] wood”), or oboe, was originally one of the names of the shawm, the violently powerful instrument of

Oboe Concerto, three-movement concerto for oboe and small orchestra, one of the last works written by German composer Richard Strauss. It was completed in 1945, and Strauss revised the ending in 1948; most musicians prefer the earlier ending. The piece was inspired by John de Lancie, an American

oboe: The oboe d’amore, in A, pitched a minor third below the oboe, is made with a globular bell like that of the cor anglais. It was much employed by Bach and is also used in several 20th-century works. Instruments pitched an octave below the oboe are…

English horn: …nearly identical to the 18th-century oboe da caccia and is now sometimes used for J.S. Bach’s parts for that instrument. The English horn was also built in an angular form.

wind instrument: Classification: …reeds are generically classified as oboes and the single reeds as clarinets. Accordingly, the bassoon is an oboe, and the saxophone is a clarinet.

Kangxi: Early life: Suksaha, Ebilun, and Oboi—four conservative Manchu courtiers from the preceding reign. One of the first political acts of the four imperial advisers was to replace the so-called Thirteen Offices (Shisan Yanmen) with a Neiwufu (Dorgi Yamun), or Office of Household. The Thirteen Offices, all organized solely by Chinese…

coin: Charlemagne and the Carolingian coinages: …introduced the smaller and subsidiary obole, or half-denier. The main types of his deniers were threefold: the monogram of his Latinized name, Carolus; a temple (sometimes a gateway); and, more rarely, a portrait. Monogram deniers were coined in France, Germany, northern Italy, and northeastern Spain; temple deniers were also widely…

lamp shells: Annotated classification: Order Obolellida Mostly calcareous, biconvex, shape nearly circular to elongated; position of pedicle opening variable; dorsal valve with marginal beak; 5 genera; Early to mid-Cambrian. Order Paterinida Shell with phosphate, rounded or elliptical; pedicle opening partly closed by cover called homeodeltidium; dorsal valve similar to the…

radio: Horror and suspense: …left the series to writer-director Arch Oboler. The show (which frequently aired at midnight so as not to be heard by the young and impressionable) became radio’s ultimate gore fest, filled with various grisly dismemberments accomplished by imaginative sound effects. Oboler tried to make some important points about society’s mores…

Obolus, genus of extinct brachiopod, or lamp shell, of the Cambrian Period (from 542 million to 488 million years ago). Obolus was a small animal with a spherical shape; one valve, or shell, was larger than the other. Unlike the shells of its relatives, the lingulids, the obolus shells were

Efik: The obong, or paramount leader, elected from among the heads of various Houses, traditionally exercised his authority as head of the Ekpe (Egbo), or Leopard, society. In addition to ritual propitiation of forest spirits to ensure the well-being of the community, this graded secret male society…

Milton Obote was a politician who was prime minister (1962–70) and twice president (1966–71, 1980–85) of Uganda. He led his country to independence in 1962, but his two terms in office (both of which were ended by military coups) were consumed by struggles between Uganda’s northern and southern

Milton Obote was a politician who was prime minister (1962–70) and twice president (1966–71, 1980–85) of Uganda. He led his country to independence in 1962, but his two terms in office (both of which were ended by military coups) were consumed by struggles between Uganda’s northern and southern

Nicanor Parra: Obra gruesa (1969; “Big Work”) is a collection of Parra’s poems, excluding his first book. Its tone of dissatisfaction is intensified by the use of prosaic language, cliché, and ironic wordplay.

Serbian literature: …of the Enlightenment period was Dositej Obradović, whose writings greatly influenced Serbian literary development. A man of great learning and a polyglot who spent most of his life traveling through Europe and Asia Minor, Obradović wrote a captivating autobiography, Život i priključenija Dimitrija Obradovića (1783; The Life and Adventures of…

León de Greiff: Obras completas (1960, rev. 1975; “Complete Works”) reveals the poet’s continued interest in language and sound experiment. The later poems treat themes that show the paradoxical side of human nature. De Greiff’s poetry is often ironic, humorous, and satirical to the point of self-mockery.

Francisco Manuel de Melo: In 1665 he published his Obras Métricas (“Poetic Works”), which includes Spanish verse betraying the Baroque conceits and Latinisms conventional in the period, and Portuguese sonnets and verse epistles that are notable for their power, sincerity, and perfection of form.

Sergey Vladimirovich Obraztsov was a puppet master who established puppetry as an art form in the Soviet Union and who is considered one of the greatest puppeteers of the 20th century. The son of a schoolteacher and a railroad engineer, Obraztsov studied painting at the Higher Art and Technical

Jakob Obrecht was a composer who, with Jean d’Ockeghem and Josquin des Prez, was one of the leading composers in the preeminently vocal and contrapuntal Franco-Flemish, or Franco-Netherlandish, style that dominated Renaissance music. He was the son of Willem Obrecht, a trumpeter. His first known

Latin American art: Trends, c. 1950–c. 1970: During this same period Alejandro Obregón of Colombia painted sensuously beautiful canvases that initially seem abstract but, through the suggestions of the titles or through representational glimpses, actually refer to elemental tropical nature. His images loom in and out of consciousness like the fantastic novels of his Colombian contemporary…

Álvaro Obregón was a soldier, statesman, and reformer who, as president, restored order to Mexico after a decade of political upheavals and civil war that followed the revolution of 1910. Though Obregón had little formal education, he learned a great deal about the needs and desires of poor

Latin American art: Realism: …The Discovery of Pulque (1869), José Obregón adapted the architecture represented in pre-Columbian Mixtec codices, but he misread the indigenous cross-sectioned conceptualization of temples, interpreting it as a naturalistic design for a throne. Obregón and his academic colleagues could not understand that the pre-Columbian codex painter had not intended to…

Obrenović dynasty, family that provided Serbia with five rulers between 1815 and 1903. Their succession was broken by a rival dynasty, the Karadjordjević. Miloš, who founded the dynasty, was prince of Serbia from 1815 to 1839 and again from 1858 to 1860; his elder son, Milan III, reigned for only

Alexander was the king of Serbia (1889–1903), whose unpopular authoritarian reign resulted not only in his assassination but also in the end of the Obrenović dynasty. The only child of Prince (later King) Milan (reigned 1868–89) and his consort, Natalie, Alexander ascended the Serbian throne on

Michael III was the prince of Serbia (1839–42, 1860–68) and modern Serbia’s most enlightened ruler, who instituted the rule of law and attempted to found a Balkan federation aimed against the Ottoman Empire. The second son of Miloš Obrenović, Michael succeeded to the Serbian throne on the death of