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the british & irish lions is a rugby union team selected from players eligible for the national teams of england, ireland, scotland, and wales. the lions are a test side and most often select players who have already played for their national team, although they can pick uncapped players who are eligible for any of the...
the bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass () is the lowest-pitched member of the guitar family. it is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length, and typically four to six strings or courses. since the mid-1950s, the ...
basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's hoop (a basket in diameter mounted high to a backboard at each end of the court),...
blowfish are species of fish in the family tetraodontidae. blowfish may also refer to: porcupinefish, belonging to the family diodontidae blowfish (cipher), an encryption algorithm blowfish (company), an american erotic goods supplier the blowfish, a satirical newspaper at brandeis university lexington county blowfish,...
a ball is a round object (usually spherical, but can sometimes be ovoid) with several uses. it is used in ball games, where the play of the game follows the state of the ball as it is hit, kicked or thrown by players. balls can also be used for simpler activities, such as catch or juggling. balls made from hard-wearing...
in mathematics, a binary relation associates elements of one set, called the domain, with elements of another set, called the codomain. a binary relation over sets and is a new set of ordered pairs consisting of elements from and from . it is a generalization of the more widely understood idea of a unary function. it e...
braille ( , ) is a tactile writing system used by people who are visually impaired. it can be read either on embossed paper or by using refreshable braille displays that connect to computers and smartphone devices. braille can be written using a slate and stylus, a braille writer, an electronic braille notetaker or wit...
bastille day is the common name given in english-speaking countries to the national day of france, which is celebrated on 14 july each year. in french, it is formally called the (; ); legally it is known as (; ). the french national day is the anniversary of the storming of the bastille on 14 july 1789, a major event o...
blowfish is a symmetric-key block cipher, designed in 1993 by bruce schneier and included in many cipher suites and encryption products. blowfish provides a good encryption rate in software, and no effective cryptanalysis of it has been found to date. however, the advanced encryption standard (aes) now receives more at...
a bijection is a function that is both injective (one-to-one) and surjective (onto). in other words, every element in the codomain of the function is mapped to by exactly one element in the domain of the function. equivalently, a bijection is a binary relation between two sets, such that each element of one set is pair...
in mathematics, a binary function (also called bivariate function, or function of two variables) is a function that takes two inputs. precisely stated, a function is binary if there exists sets such that where is the cartesian product of and alternative definitions set-theoretically, a binary function can be represente...
blue velvet is a 1986 american neo-noir mystery thriller film written and directed by david lynch. blending psychological horror with film noir, the film stars kyle maclachlan, isabella rossellini, dennis hopper, and laura dern, and is named after the 1951 song of the same name. the film concerns a young college studen...
in mathematics, a binary operation or dyadic operation is a rule for combining two elements (called operands) to produce another element. more formally, a binary operation is an operation of arity two. more specifically, an internal binary operation on a set is a binary operation whose two domains and the codomain are ...
bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. the great highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of europe, northern africa, western asia, around the persian gulf and northern parts of sout...
bedrock records is an english record label for trance, progressive house and techno started by john digweed. its name comes from a long running and successful club night held in hastings and also at heaven nightclub, london - both also called bedrock. bedrock records has released many singles from artists such as astro...
biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. a sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, and metabolism. over the last decades of the 20th century, biochemistry has beco...
badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players per side). badminton is often played as a casual outdoor activity in a yard or on ...
the baroque (, ; ) or baroquism is a western style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from the early 17th century until the 1750s. it followed renaissance art and mannerism and preceded the rococo (in the past often referred to as "late baroque") and neoclassical ...
in abstract algebra, a boolean algebra or boolean lattice is a complemented distributive lattice. this type of algebraic structure captures essential properties of both set operations and logic operations. a boolean algebra can be seen as a generalization of a power set algebra or a field of sets, or its elements can b...
the bank of italy (italian: banca d'italia, informally referred to as bankitalia) () is the central bank of italy and part of the european system of central banks. it is located in palazzo koch, via nazionale, rome. the bank's current governor is ignazio visco, who took the office on 1 november 2011. until january 1999...
british may refer to: peoples, culture, and language british people, nationals or natives of the united kingdom, british overseas territories, and crown dependencies. british national identity, the characteristics of british people and culture british english, the english language as spoken and written in the united ki...
beachcomber is a nom de plume that has been used by several journalists writing a long-running humorous column in the daily express. it was originated in 1917 by major john bernard arbuthnot mvo as his signature on the column, titled 'by the way'. the name beachcomber was then passed to d. b. wyndham lewis in 1919 and,...
william nelson joy (born november 8, 1954) is an american computer engineer and venture capitalist. he co-founded sun microsystems in 1982 along with scott mcnealy, vinod khosla, and andy bechtolsheim, and served as chief scientist and cto at the company until 2003. he played an integral role in the early development o...
bandwidth is the difference between the upper and lower frequencies in a continuous band of frequencies. it is typically measured in hertz, and depending on context, may specifically refer to passband bandwidth or baseband bandwidth. passband bandwidth is the difference between the upper and lower cutoff frequencies of...
in buddhism, a bodhisattva ( ; () or bodhisatva is a person who is on the path towards bodhi ('awakening') or buddhahood. in the early buddhist schools, as well as modern theravāda buddhism, bodhisattva (pāli: bodhisatta) refers to someone who has made a resolution to become a buddha and has also received a confirmatio...
buckingham palace () is a royal residence in london and the administrative headquarters of the monarch of the united kingdom. located in the city of westminster, the palace is often at the centre of state occasions and royal hospitality. it has been a focal point for the british people at times of national rejoicing an...
british airways (ba) is the flag carrier of the united kingdom. it is headquartered in london, england, near its main hub at heathrow airport. the airline is the second largest uk-based carrier, based on fleet size and passengers carried, behind easyjet. in january 2011 ba merged with iberia, creating the international...
a bicycle, also called a pedal cycle, bike, push-bike or cycle, is a human-powered or motor-powered assisted, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. a is called a cyclist, or bicyclist. bicycles were introduced in the 19th century in europe. by the early 21st ce...
biopolymers are natural polymers produced by the cells of living organisms. like other polymers, biopolymers consist of monomeric units that are covalently bonded in chains to form larger molecules. there are three main classes of biopolymers, classified according to the monomers used and the structure of the biopolyme...
the 2001 united kingdom general election was held on thursday 7 june 2001, four years after the previous election on 1 may 1997, to elect 659 members to the house of commons. the governing labour party was re-elected to serve a second term in government with another landslide victory with a 167 majority, returning 412 ...
the book of mormon is a religious text of the latter day saint movement, which, according to latter day saint theology, contains writings of ancient prophets who lived on the american continent from 600 bc to ad 421 and during an interlude dated by the text to the unspecified time of the tower of babel. it was first pu...
baptists form a major branch of protestantism distinguished by baptizing only professing christian believers (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul competency (the responsibility and accountability of every person before god), sola fi...
blackjack (formerly black jack and vingt-un) is a casino banking game. it is the most widely played casino banking game in the world. it uses decks of 52 cards and descends from a global family of casino banking games known as "twenty-one". this family of card games also includes the european games vingt-et-un and pont...
in inorganic chemistry, bicarbonate (iupac-recommended nomenclature: hydrogencarbonate) is an intermediate form in the deprotonation of carbonic acid. it is a polyatomic anion with the chemical formula . bicarbonate serves a crucial biochemical role in the physiological ph buffering system. the term "bicarbonate" was c...
bernard allan federko (born may 12, 1956) is a canadian former professional ice hockey centre who played fourteen seasons in the national hockey league from 1976 through 1990. playing career federko began playing hockey at a young age in his home town of foam lake, saskatchewan. he was captain of the 1971 bantam provin...
buffalo is the second-most populated city in the u.s. state of new york and the seat of erie county. it lies in western new york, at the eastern end of lake erie, at the head of the niagara river, on the united states border with canada. with a population of 278,349 according to the 2020 census, buffalo is the 78th-lar...
benjamin franklin ( april 17, 1790) was an american polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. among the leading intellectuals of his time, franklin was one of the founding fathers of the united states, a drafter and signer of the declar...
in mathematics, more specifically in functional analysis, a banach space (pronounced ) is a complete normed vector space. thus, a banach space is a vector space with a metric that allows the computation of vector length and distance between vectors and is complete in the sense that a cauchy sequence of vectors always c...
abraham stoker (8 november 1847 – 20 april 1912) was an irish author who wrote the 1897 gothic horror novel dracula. during his lifetime, he was better known as the personal assistant of actor sir henry irving and business manager of the west end's lyceum theatre, which irving owned. in his early years, stoker worked a...
billion is a name for a large number. it may refer specifically to: 1,000,000,000 (, one thousand million), the short scale definition 1,000,000,000,000 (, one million million), the long scale definition billion may also refer to: film and tv billions (tv series), a showtime series billions (film), a 1920 silent comedy...
contract bridge, or simply bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard 52-card deck. in its basic format, it is played by four players in two competing partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other around a table. millions of people play bridge worldwide in clubs, tournaments, online and with friends...
a boat is a watercraft of a large range of types and sizes, but generally smaller than a ship, which is distinguished by its larger size, shape, cargo or passenger capacity, or its ability to carry boats. small boats are typically found on inland waterways such as rivers and lakes, or in protected coastal areas. howeve...
blood is a body fluid in the circulatory system of humans and other vertebrates that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells, and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells. blood in the circulatory system is also known as peripheral blood, and the blood cells it carr...
benoit b. mandelbrot (20 november 1924 – 14 october 2010) was a polish-born french-american mathematician and polymath with broad interests in the practical sciences, especially regarding what he labeled as "the art of roughness" of physical phenomena and "the uncontrolled element in life". he referred to himself as a ...
benedict of nursia (; ; 2 march ad 480 – 21 march ad 547), often known as saint benedict, was an italian christian monk, writer, and theologian - venerated in the catholic church, the eastern orthodox church, the oriental orthodox churches, the anglican communion, and old catholic churches. in 1964 pope paul vi declare...
the battle of pharsalus was the decisive battle of caesar's civil war fought on 9 august 48 bc near pharsalus in central greece. julius caesar and his allies formed up opposite the army of the roman republic under the command of pompey. pompey had the backing of a majority of roman senators and his army significantly o...
bigfoot, also commonly referred to as sasquatch, is a large and hairy human-like mythical creature purported to inhabit forests in north america, particularly in the pacific northwest. enthusiasts of the subject have offered various forms of dubious evidence to prove bigfoot's existence, including anecdotal claims of s...
harry lillis "bing" crosby jr. (may 3, 1903 – october 14, 1977) was an american singer, actor, television producer, television and radio personality and businessman. the first multimedia star, he was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century worldwide. he was a leader in record sales, ...
base or base may refer to: brands and enterprises base (mobile telephony provider), a belgian mobile telecommunications operator base crm, an enterprise software company founded in 2009 with offices in mountain view and kraków, poland base design, an international design, communications, audiovisual, copywriting and pu...
the basel convention on the control of transboundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal, usually known as the basel convention, is an international treaty that was designed to reduce the movements of hazardous waste between nations, and specifically to prevent transfer of hazardous waste from developed to...