Glossary
Adenine molecule A Chemical unit containing equal parts of carbon hydrogen and nitrogen.
Algorithm A set of rules that instruct how a group of calculations are to be performed.
Amino acid residues The essential building blocks for protein construction.
Amino acid sequence The sequence of chemical units used to construct protein.
Amoeba A single-cell animal.
Anisotropy A quality in which physical properties change with the direction chosen in a material or a system.
Anthropologist A person committed to the study of man.
Anthropology The study of man.
Antioxidant A chemical that prevents oils and fats from going rancid.
Archeology The study of ancient times based on digging up buried artifacts.
Argon A comparatively heavy inert gas.
Astigmatism An optical imperfection that produces blurred images due to defects in lens curvature.
Astrophysical data Measurements of planetary behavior and properties, or light, radio and x-ray energy from stars.
Astrophysicist A scientist who studies laws that describe the behavior of stars and planets.
Atom Commonly pictured as an ultra-miniature solar system, it is the basic building block from which all materials are made.
Atomic particles Tiny specks of matter that can be organized to form atoms.
Australo-pithecus A classification of life called "genus" assigned to ape-like fossils found in eastern Africa.
Background radiation Recently measured energy that has filled the universe almost from the time of the origin of the universe.
Bacteria Single-celled organisms that can only be seen through a microscope.
Bacterium A single-cell life form that resembles a plant cell.
Big Bang Recent knowledge that the universe exploded into existence.
Biochemical evolution The belief that nonliving chemicals spontaneously sprang to life.
Biochemists Chemists who work with chemicals found in living systems.
Bipedal locomotion Walking upright using two legs.
Black holes Theoretically predicted pockets of space from which neither matter nor light can escape.
Boson A class of subatomic particles that statistically behave in a way called "Bose-Einstein."
Carbon dioxide A chemical compound of carbon and oxygen exhaled by animal life and needed by plant life.
Causality The notion that each event is the result of a prior cause.
Chromosome A rod-shaped container of genes.
Classical laws Older rules describing objects whose existence was assumed to be independent of observations.
Classical object Anything not subject to quantum laws.
Codon degeneracy A condition in which different DNA chemical units instruct attachment of the same amino acid.
Cone nebula A cone-shaped cloud of gas or dust between stars.
Cosmic rays High-energy particles from outer space.
Cosmological Of or pertaining to the heavens.
Cosmological data Measurement of planets and stars.
Cranial index The ratio of the greatest breadth of a skull to its longest front-to-back length.
Creationism The belief that existing things were called into being by God's command.
Creationist As commonly used, a person who believes that the world and all of life came into existence over a time period of six ordinary days.
Criminologist A person committed to the study of criminals.
Crystallization The abrupt change of a substance into a well-ordered structured state.
Cystic fibrosis A disease of the lungs.
Cytochrome-C A relatively short protein associated with the respiration of living organisms.
Deuterium A rare, heavy form of hydrogen found in nature.
Diabetes A disease-producing abnormal sugar metabolism.
Diaphragm muscle The muscle below the lung that controls breathing.
Disequilibrium processes Natural motions that continue in a state of change.
DNA Long chemical strands in living cells which contain information that specifies, procreates and controls all of life.
DNA nucleotide One of four kinds of chemical units found in DNA as an informational sequence in groups of three.
DNA-DNA hybridization The overlap or mixing of two DNA segments.
Eccentricity The degree of a planet's departure from a circular orbit around the sun.
Eddies Swirl of a gas or liquid.
Electrical charge A condition of two particles that causes their mutual repulsion, or two opposite conditions that cause their mutual attraction.
Electrical current The motion of electrical charge.
Electromagnetic radiation Light and other similar energy traveling through space.
Electron A very small, stable atomic particle with negative electrical charge that is located away from an atom's center and in its outer fringe.
Electron microscope A microscope that uses electrons instead of light for the purpose of enlarging tiny objects to very high magnification.
Electron microscopy The investigation of tiny objects by means of an electron microscope.
Emissivity The fraction of thermal energy emitted by a hot surface.
Energy positivity A condition that characterizes useful energy.
Enigma A perplexing riddle.
Entropy The name of a mathematical expression that permits scientists to measure the degree to which physical matter disarranges itself with the passage of time.
Enzyme A chemical structure used by cells to assemble chains of amino acids.
Epistemology The root or foundational source of something.
Equilibrium state The state of a system at rest.
Esterase A set of enzymes that promotes a reaction between water and a group of chemicals formed by mixing acid with alcohol.
Eunuch A castrated man—usually in charge of a harem.
Evolution As commonly used, the belief that every biological system on earth was produced by changes in a preceding one.
Evolutionist As commonly used, a person who believes that all life on earth came from slowly changing natural processes operating over billions of years.
Fermion A class of subatomic particles that statistically behave in a way called "Fermi-Dirac."
Flatness problem The present condition of the universe which indicates that it was miraculously tuned at inception to better than fifty decimal places.
Free radical An active chemical form that reacts with any tissue it contacts.
Galactic magnetism Magnetic forces within group of stars.
Gene A chemical structure that contains genetic information.
Genome A family of integrated genes packed with information that totally controls the organism.
Grand unification theory An attempt to mathematically unify the strong binding energies in an atom's nucleus with nature's electrical forces and weak interactions.
Gravitational constant A fixed number that reoccurs in calculations on gravity.
Heavy particle A particle with abnormally large mass compared to those found in the nucleus of an atom.
Helium The lightest of several inert gases.
Hemoglobin A very special blood molecule that transports oxygen from the lungs to the body tissue on 4 iron atoms, each centered in a ring of carbon, hydrogen and nitrogen atoms that is surrounded by a protein chain; there are 270 million of these four entwined chains in each of 30 trillion red blood cells.
Hemophilia A genetic disease that allows blood to flow from the smallest wound without clotting.
Hieroglyphics An ancient form of picture writing.
Hominid family A category used to classify early fossils alleged to lie in man's lineage.
Homogenous mixing A mixing of things which assures that they are the same everywhere.
Homogeneity A condition in which everything throughout the volume of something is the same.
Homologous protein lineage A family of functionally equivalent proteins.
Hominid fossil A fossil alleged to lie in man's biological lineage.
Hormone A class of chemical substances produced in body organs that affect how we feel.
Huge entropy An expression that describes the large "mixed-upness" of our present universe.
Huntington's disease A rare nervous disorder that gradually impairs body movements, speech, and mental ability.
Hydrogen A deadly poison used as a fumigant in cyanide horticulture, flour mills, and the holds of ships.
Hydrogen peroxide An oxidized state of water.
Hydroquinone The acid form of a chemical compound used in making dyes.
Hypersphere A multidimensional space analogous to an ordinary sphere in three dimensions.
Information theory Modern insights of interchange that allow for the maximizing of information, minimizing of errors, and quantifying the rule of redundancy.
Inorganic molecule A kind of chemical unit found in nonliving systems.
Inverse square law of gravity A law that describes how gravity weakens with distance.
Isotope An atom whose nucleus contains an abnormal number of neutrons.
Isovaleric acid An acid composed of a chemical compound originally found in the root of the valerian plant which in appearance has the consistency of a thin oil.
Laminar flow Gas or liquid motion along straight lines.
Lepton A class of subatomic particles resembling packets of matter-energy which cannot be made smaller, and which do not interact by the strong forces found in the nuclei of atoms.
Macrostate The state of a system taken as a whole.
Magnetic field A condition of space produced by the presence of an electrical current.
Magnetic monopole A comparatively large atomic particle that was theoretically predicted to have one magnetic pole.
Melon A hemispherical mass of fat near the top of the head of whales, porpoises, and dolphins.
Metaphysical residue The remains of a thought process that involves much speculation.
Metastable state A state of temporary stability.
Meteorites Objects falling from outer space that reach earth's surface.
Molecular anthropology The attempt to reconstruct man's lineage through study of amino acid sequences in fossils.
Molecular phylogeny The attempt to reconstruct the lineage of species through study of amino acid sequences in fossils.
Molecules The smallest unit of a substance into which atoms combine in a stable way.
Muon A subnuclear particle belonging to the "lepton" family.
Muscular sclerosis A disease destroying nerve transmissions to and from the brain.
Muscular dystrophy A name used to describe any one of several muscle diseases.
Myopic Near- or short-sighted.
Natural selection An assumption by Darwin that the fittest survive — a belief which later proved circular in logic when its practical application forced the "survivors" to be effectively defined as the "fittest."
Negative charge A name given to one of two opposite electrical conditions of a particle.
Neutrino An extremely tiny particle produced in abundance soon after the universe was created.
Neutron An electrically neutral stable particle found in the nuclei of atoms approximately equal in size and weight to a Proton.
New Inflationary Theory An improved version of the Big Bang in which the universe first expands rapidly but then later slows down.
Nitrogen molecules The smallest structural unit of nitrogen gas that preserves its identity.
Nucleation A process where something comes into being by growing outward from a disturbance at its center.
Nucleotide base Any of four kinds of chemical units that cluster into groups of three in an informational sequence along DNA that instruct all life's processes.
Organic molecule A name given to the chemical units found in living systems.
Paleoanthropologist A person committed to the study of human and related fossils.
Paleontology The fossil study of prehistoric life forms.
Parabolic path A curve traced by objects when falling to earth.
Paradigm A expression that emphasizes different relations among nouns, adjectives, and pronouns through changed endings.
Particle physics The study of the smallest units of matter.
Percolate The passage of bubble-like entities through small spaces.
Pheromones Chemicals transmitted between organisms of the same species that trigger changes in behavior including mating.
Phosphor A class of materials which produce light when bombarded with electrons at high voltage.
Photon The basic unit of light energy.
Planck time An extremely small time period over which the universe would have destroyed itself had it not been supernaturally tuned to a precision of better than fifty decimal places prior to its birth.
Plasma Commonly used to describe the fluid in which blood cells are suspended, but employed in physics to denote a gas so hot that the heat energy separates the plus and minus charges of the atoms into equal parts.
Polar ice The ice at the north and south poles of the earth.
Polymer chemistry The branch of chemistry concerned with long chemical chains.
Polypeptide gene product Large organic molecules created by linking up many amino acids.
Pongid family A category used to classify early ape fossils.
Positive charge A name given to one of two opposite electrical conditions of a particle.
Progeria A disease that causes premature aging.
Progestin A crystallized hormone that prepares the uterus for conception.
Protein molecule Generally regarded as the basic chemical unit of life capable of self-replication when immersed in a nutrient bath composed of its chemical parts.
Proton A relatively large stable particle with positive charge found in the nuclei of atoms.
Quantum fluctuation A label describing an unpredictable disturbance made possible by temporarily borrowing energy from the vacuum of space.
Quantum laws Modern scientific rules that statistically describe the numerical data produced by human observations.
Quantum object Anything subject to quantum laws.
Quantum physics The science that applies quantum laws at the atomic level.
Quantum relativistic foundations The combined resources of two branches of science: Einstein's relativity, and quantum physics.
Quarks A class of basic particles that come together in different arrangements to build larger particles.
Radiation Used in physics to describe energy transmission through space, but employed in evolution to denote the alleged appearance of two or more life forms from a common ancestor.
Reflectivity The fraction of incident energy not absorbed by a surface.
Renaissance A fourteenth-century European revival of the arts, literature, and learning.
Rest state A system condition in which no change occurs.
Rhesus monkey A small, short-tailed monkey common throughout India.
RNA The chemical template used by a cell to transfer information from DNA for assembling protein.
Self-assembly The belief that physical matter can self-organize into more complex forms under natural laws.
Serological Pertaining to the preparation, use, and properties of watery animal fluids including blood.
Sickle-cell anemia An inherited disease producing abnormal hemoglobin in the blood.
Silica A chemical compound composed of silicon and oxygen commonly found in the earth's crust.
Singularity theorem A mathematical proposition concerned with calculations that involved division by zero.
Spherical aberration An optical imperfection that causes a blurred image due to light along the outer part of a lens being focused at a different point than the light through its center.
Statistical mechanics A science that describes the behavior of a very large collection of objects using either classical or quantum laws.
Steady state The belief that the universe has always existed.
Subnuclear particles Smallest known particles of the universe.
Synonymous amino acid residue One of a group of chemical units whose location at a given chemical site is equally likely.
Synthetic theory The belief that natural selection explains the progression of the increasing biological complexity of fossils with the passage of time.
Szilard A twentieth-century scientist first to realize that the energy spent by an observer to acquire information will always exceed the energy that the observer can store using that information.
Tau A subnuclear particle belonging to the "lepton" family.
Temperature excursions The high and the low of temperature movement.
Theologian A person who studies Bible truths using concepts created from its teachings.
Theory of relativity A set of mathematical relations showing that mass and energy come from equivalent space curvatures that can appear differently in different observational situations.
Thermo-chemistry Chemical changes involving heat.
Thermodynamic Pertaining to motion connected with heat.
Thermodynamics The study of the combined effects of heat and motion.
Thermodynamic variable A mathematical parameter needed to describe a system's total intrinsic condition.
Troposhere The upper fringe of the atmosphere.
U(I) group A theoretical symbol denoting the advent of electrical symmetry when the universe cooled sufficiently to separate out weak interactions.
Ultra-violet light Nonvisible light energy that lies just above "blue" in the color spectrum.
Uncertainty principle The discovery that we cannot precisely know both the location and the speed of an atomic particle at the same time.
von Neuman A twentieth-century scientist first to calculate the minimum information needed by a machine to reproduce itself.
Y-chromosome A chemical structure in a male person's genes that is shaped like the letter "Y."
Zero gravitational entropy An initial state from which the universe was born that is free of any mixing.
