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Abbe
U.S. meteorologist. Born in New York City, he was trained as an astronomer and appointed director of the Cincinnati Observatory in 1868. His interest turned to meteorology, and he inaugurated a public weather service that served as a model for the national weather service, which was organized shortly thereafter as a branch of the (U.S. Army) Signal Service. In 1871 he was appointed chief meteorologist of the branch, which in 1891 was reorganized under civilian control as the U.S. Weather Bureau (later the National Weather Service), and he served in that capacity more than 45 years.


Hobbes
British philosopher and political theorist. The son of a vicar who abandoned his family, Hobbes was raised by his uncle. He graduated from Oxford Univ., then became a tutor and traveled with his pupil in Europe, where he engaged Galileo in philosophical discussions on the nature of motion. He later turned to political theory and wrote out his support for absolutism, which put him at odds with the rising antiroyalist sentiment of the time. He fled to Paris in 1640, where he tutored the future Charles II of England and wrote his best-known work, Leviathan (1651), in which he reasserted his absolutist position and argued against separation of church and state. He returned to Britain in 1651 after the death of Charles I. In 1666 Parliament threatened to investigate him as an atheist. He is regarded as a pioneer of utilitarianism (he justified obedience to moral rules as the means to peaceable, comfortable living), modern political science, and rationalism.


Babbage
British mathematician and inventor. Educated at Cambridge Univ., he devoted himself from c.1812 to devising machines capable of calculating mathematical tables. His first small calculator could perform certain computations to eight decimals. In 1823 he obtained government support for the design of a projected machine with a 20-decimal capacity. In the 1830s he developed plans for the so-called analytical engine, capable of performing any arithmetical operation on the basis of instructions from punched cards, a memory unit in which to store numbers, sequential control, and most of the other basic elements of the present-day computer. The forerunner of the modern digital computer, the analytical engine was never completed. In 1991 British scientists built Difference Engine No. 2 (accurate to 31 digits) to Babbage's specifications. His other contributions included establishing the modern postal system in England, compiling the first reliable actuarial tables, and inventing the locomotive cowcatcher.


barbet
Any of about 75 species of tropical birds (family Capitonidae) named for the bristles at the base of their stout, sharp bill. They are big-headed and short-tailed, 3.5-12 in. (9-30 cm) long, and greenish or brownish, with splashes of bright colors or white. Barbets are found throughout Central America to N S. America, in ...

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